Lucy can tell that something is not right. The woods seem to be alive with something evil within. Quigley didn’t tell them everything they should have known. Tinker agrees to move to the house and fix the clock. Lucy seems to be the one who is often impulsive yet seems to be the glue holding them all together. It doesn’t help that their mother had died from cancer two year before. Up to this point the family has had it financially tough. He throws down a large amount of gold as an advance. Tinker to repair a cuckoo clock in an old house he has recently acquired. As they begin to close up a gentleman enters and makes a proposal that seems too good to be true. Her brother is trying to help her father. She is sitting there because she is in trouble. The book opens with Lucy Tinker sitting in the display window of her dad’s clock repair shop. Who wouldn’t love a story that had middle school age kids with all of their issues, monsters, a spooky house with talking animals? On top of that there is a monster in the woods called the Garr.

This is one that will be on my shelves the day it comes out. I love reading middle grade books because I teach middle grade students. One of the best books I've read this year. And before they can entirely understand the strange world they've stumbled into, Lucy and Oliver must join forces with a host of magical clock animals to defeat the Garr-a vicious monster that not only wants Blackford House for itself, but also seeks to destroy everything the Tinkers hold dear. It doesn't take long, however, for the children to realize that there is more to Blackford House than meets the eye. Tinker needs to do is fix the clock at Blackford House and fistfuls of gold coins are his to keep.

A mysterious stranger has made their father an offer that's too good for him to refuse. When Lucy and Oliver Tinker arrive in Watch Hollow, they have no idea that anything is wrong. But when the clock's gears cease to turn, an evil presence lurking among the trees begins to come out of the shadows. New York Times bestselling author Gregory Funaro brings us into a world where magic exists, monsters roam in the shadows, and wooden animals come to life.ĭeep within the enchanted woods in the town of Watch Hollow stands the once-grand Blackford House, whose halls hold a magical secret: a giant cuckoo clock that does much more than tell time.

Watch Hollow by Gregory Funaro