Olivia's Enchanted Summer by Lyn Gardner

School's out for summer! Olivia and her friends are going to be spending August in Edinburgh, home to the world-famous Fringe Festival. They can't wait to get there, to stay in the beautiful city and soak up the Festival atmosphere, while the Swan Circus performs every day to wild applause and rapturous reviews - With such passion, such good friendships and the summer stretching out before them, what could possibly go wrong?

This is the fifth book in the series by Lyn Gardner featuring The Swan Theatre School and in this instalment The Swans are taking their circus show to Edinburgh Festival for the summer season.

I really enjoy these books, they are a great series set within a stage school - but one where curriculum lessons are as important as the stage school classes. The school is ran by Lydia Swan and the circus is the brain child of her son in law Jack Marvell and his children, Olivia and Eel. The school all go to Edinburgh and work as hard as they can to promote their new show - this is an adventure for the whole cast and they have a great time up there. However, Olivia notices there are a number of jewel thefts around the city and in particular two girls appear to in the right place, at the right time, but when they get involved in the circus act, Olivia is unsure what to do.

This is a great book for children aged 9+ and I think it would appeal to both boys and girls, especially if they have an interest in performing arts or circus routines. The series are still a great school based set of stories which enlist the values that academic studies come before anything else. 

Thank you to the author and the publishers, Nosy Crow, for sending me the book to review and I am looking forward to the next instalment out this autumn.