Synopses & Reviews
Things are not right at the Strega-Borgia castle. Signor Luciano Strega-Borgia has been kidnapped. Signora Baci Strega-Borgia is struggling with her spells at the Advanced Witchcraft Institute. Titus and Pandora dont like their suspiciously cheerful and fearless new nanny. Baby Damp has been accidentally shrunk, e-mailed, and lost on the World Wide Web. And to top it off, theres a gangster in a bunny suit lurking about...
This seriously over-the-top, gothic romp is sure to have readers clamoring for the next Strega-Borgia adventure.
Review
"Gliori's debut novel merges traditional fantasy with high technology; the result is a bit of a conceptual mish-mash with a tangled plot, enlivened by an eccentric sense of humor....[B]athroom humor abounds (dragon diarrhea, a hit-man in a rabbit suit peeing in his outfit) and Gliori's oddball characters are certainly good fun; the book and its two projected sequels may charm audiences despite its flaws." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Filled to bursting with an eccentric cast of characters, this extravagant tale combines magic, mafiaesque villainy, mythical beasts, foible-filled humans, and humor into a mixture that will appeal to fans of Diana Wynne Jones, J. K. Rowling, and even Lemony Snicket. There is a little too much going on, there are some characters with too little to do, and some elements go over the top several stereotypical bad guys expire in gruesome and ludicrous ways, for instance but the outrageous, tongue-in-cheek tone makes up for any plot deficiencies....Pure dead fun." School Library Journal
Review
"This debut fiction from Gliori is also the first of a projected trilogy, though it stands sturdily on its own. She fills it with incident, as well as magical transformations, nauseating messes, cartoon violence, just deserts, and an array of exaggerated characters ranging from innocent to vile, quietly competent to totally clueless. Should Lemony Snicket grow a bit stale, here's the perfect antidote." Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Debi Gliori was perfectly happy growing up an only child in Glasgow, but concedes that if given the chance, she might have traded both eyeballs and all her black hair to live with the mildly dysfunctional Strega-Borgia family near the Highlands of Scotland. Before finishing
Pure Dead Magic on her birthday, she had already written and illustrated numerous picture books for children.
Ms. Gliori lives in Scotland and has at least five children, one golden retriever, and a colony of sea monkeys.