Review - Mort the Meek and the Perilous Prophecy by Rachel Delahaye

Review - Mort the Meek and the Perilous Prophecy by Rachel Delahaye

When Brutalia’s ever suspicious Queen is forewarned of a new enemy – a nearby island called Bonrock – Mort is worried. As a pacifist, he’s a firm believer that strangers are just friends they haven’t met yet. Then he and his best friend and fellow pacifist Weed are sent to the island to investigate.

But Bonrock is a warm and welcoming place, with luscious landscapes and tropical waters. Mort’s relieved – there’s no need to fight! Until they stumble upon something terrifying… Perhaps there really is trouble in paradise?

I hope you aren't a stranger to Brutalia, because Brutalia hates strangers! Luckily, I've been there since the beginning so I might just about be tolerated, but if you've never been you really should go and get introduced to Mort and the rest of his horrible, harsh and brutal island in book one. And then maybe get to know them a bit better in book two. Then you might just survive a third encounter with them in book three, Mort the Meek and the Perilous Prophecy! But probably not. They really hate strangers, but they're not very nice to their friends either!

It would be perfectly in the style of this book to tell you what a miserable and deeply unpleasant experience it was returning to Mort's world of Brutalia, but honesty is the best policy and honestly? I absolutely loved this book! Rachel's writing is just getting cleverer and funnier by the book, and this one is perfectly crafted. From the opening fight to the closing fight, it had me repeatedly laughing out loud on my train. Mort and Weed meet two girls from a different island, Vita and Genia from Bonrock. They seem very nice and friendly and so they can't possibly be there to cause trouble, can they? Before you know what's happening (unless you've been reading it, in which case you'll probably know exactly what's happening) Mort and Weed are being sent on a military mission to Bonrock. Yep, that's right, a military mission, for our two favourite pacifists. Obviously that's going to go just brilliantly!

After the terrible conditions of Brutalia, Bonrock seems absolutely idyllic. But sadly for our heroes, and fortunately for the plot, there are a number of crushes and misunderstandings that develop, and I honestly don't know which is more perilous! A crush can break your heart, and I know how much that hurts. But a misunderstanding can result in your heart being cut out and prepared in an industrial kitchen into a healthy and nutritious meal, and I don't know how much that hurts but I imagine it's quite a lot!

More stuff happens after that, it's all very scary and exciting and funny and clever, but if you want to know what that is, you're just going to have to read it for yourself!

Rachel Delahaye is, as well as being a comic genius, a very clever linguist. (See how easily I avoided that potentially very awkward pun there? I'd like credit for that!) So much of the humour in this book is based on wordplay and I absolutely loved all the references to synonyms and homophones and so on. Somehow having the characters explain it to each other made it even funnier, as well as potentially sneaking in some quite dangerous education into what's meant to be a horrible and silly book. Also, I'd give a bonus mark for Genia correcting someone on when to use "Weed and me" and "Weed and I" because I cannot begin to tell you how much that's been annoying me in some books I've recently read. Actually, I can. It's been annoying me a huge amount and I've been so tempted to just scream into Book Twitter "Editors, please educate your authors on when to use "and me" and when to use "and I" but I haven't, mostly because I've been off Twitter for a month now and partly because it might come across as a bit rude. I feel better for that. 

It also gets a little bit meta at times, and that absolutely cracked me up! The references to the characters reading the earlier books in the series was something I don't think I've ever seen before and it just worked so well! 

All in all, a brilliant, brutal, hilarious and clever book about fearing strangers and trusting soup, and also about fearing soup and trusting strangers. 

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

Mort the Meek and the Perilous Prophecy by Rachel Delahaye is published on 5th January 2023 by Little Tiger.

I was given a review copy via Netgalley in return for an honest review.