The Umbra Tales 2 – Mia and the Traitor of Nubis

Janelle McCurdy's Mia and the Traitor of Nubis is the second Umbra Tales fantasy for 10 year olds, and Mia's nightmares are warning her that the fight isn't over.

What happens

Mia lives in Nubis, a city of forever night, where tamers bond with umbra. These are shadowy creatures made of darkness and stars. Mia has two of them, Lux and Nox, who talk to her inside her head (and sometimes have a nose around in there without asking).

Three months ago she helped beat the Reaper King. Now the whole city knows she's a Lightcaster, a child born with the powers of the sun and moon. The trouble is, she can't control them. When she's scared or angry, light blasts out of her hands. People cross the road to avoid her.

She's training with a class of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds who think she only got in because her dad runs the tamers. Abigail calls her a star brat. Mia would very much like to thump her (she walks away, just about).

Meanwhile the tamer trials are coming, where trainees are hunted across the Nightmare Plains. Her old best friend Miles has vanished. And her dreams keep bringing the Reaper King back, coming for her and her little brother, Lucas.

Mia is brilliant fun to be around. She's fierce, funny and full of great insults like gutterslug and mudsniffer. She's scared too, and the book is honest about that. Her mum handles the nightmares so gently, giving her a journal to write them down in.

The scary bits are properly scary, though. In the opening nightmare, red-cloaked reapers snatch children and her brother's face turns monstrous. There's talk of captured tamers whose souls were probably fed to the Reaper King. For a child already prone to bad dreams, it might be one to save.

It follows on from an earlier adventure, so expect a few moments of catching up on what happened before.

What to read next

Looking for another girl who has to prove she belongs? Try Amari and the Night Brothers. Amari is told at her posh school that kids like her don't belong, then gets offered a place in a secret supernatural world with tryouts of its own.