Mixed Messages Extra: An extract from Alyssa and the Spell Garden by Alexandra Sheppard
Read an extract from this enchanting book, plus win a SIGNED copy
Hi, welcome to Mixed Messages Extra! This week, we’re sharing an extract from Alexandra Sheppard’s new middle grade fantasy, Alyssa and the Spell Garden, as well as giving you the chance to win a signed copy.
I interviewed Alexandra Sheppard for Mixed Messages last year, where she discussed quantifying the unquantifiable, how the conversation around mixedness tends to erase those who don’t fit into the boxes we expect and how her race is the least interesting thing about her.
Now Alexandra has just released her third book, Alyssa and the Spell Garden, a spellbinding story of 11-year-old Alyssa who is forced to spend the summer holiday with her mum’s family, who she’s never met before. In this new environment, Alysaa’s latent magical powers explode into life.
With a great aunt who runs a secret magic school in her spell garden, Alyssa learns that this garden grows magical spell ingredients that have protected her family and the wider neighbourhood for decades – ever since they arrived from Jamaica in the 1960s. But with the magic running, can Alyssa use her new, unpredictable magic to set things right?
This contemporary fantasy offers as much for adults as it does for younger readers, with themes of gentrification, race and immigration at its core.
Below, read an exclusive extract from the book, and find out how to win your very own signed copy.
