After the events in Reckless, Jacob and Fox travel far and wide in the Mirrorworld to find a cure for the curse of the Dark Fairy that will kill Jacob before long, but to no avail. Then the long-lost tomb of the Witch Slayer is discovered, and it's rumoured that inside it lies the most deadliest crossbow ever built. Could this be the answer to Jacob and Fox's prayers? But they're not the only ones trying to find it ... Building on the events in the first volume, it is not absolutely essential to be familiar with the plot of Reckless, but the reader will get a lot more pleasure from Fearless if they understand the characters of the main participants and what motivates them. Whereas some of the plotting and characterisation in the previous volume were a little uneven, here both are flawless, and the hunt for the crossbow reads like a breathless Indiana Jones-style chase through dark fairy tales, where there is still plenty of scope for the characters to develop and mature, while also managing to make statements about courage, loyalty and the fear of mortality. I envy Cornelia Funke her seemingly boundless imagination and the ability to tame it into words, sweeping you up in them and transporting you, like Jacob, to a different world, and allowing you to care so much for her principal characters that I'm certain my heart beat faster in sympathy more than once. Tense, gripping and simply wonderful, the book weaves a spell all of its own and I'm sure that this will become a regular favourite I will turn to like a comfort blanket.

Jacob and Will grew up without a father as John Reckless disappeared one day without a word, and has never been heard of again. When Jacob was twelve, he discovered that the mirror in his father’s study opened the door to another world, one where magic and the characters from fairy tales are real. Spending more and more time in the Mirrorworld, and building up a reputation as one of the best treasure hunters, Jacob hasn’t been the big brother that Will needed. One day Jacob is careless and his younger brother follows him through the mirror, but is hit by a curse that slowly turns him into a Goyl, ferocious creatures with skin of stone. Will Jacob be able to save his brother, and what will be the price? I have to admit that I’m a sucker for fairy tales, especially dark ones. Reading this book was like reading darker versions of the tales I loved as a child, and while the plotting and the characterisation were a little uneven (I felt that Clara in particular was quite pale and under-used), I loved the atmosphere and the set-up, and Jacob and Fox are such wonderfully complex characters that I took to them at once. Like all the best fairy tales, it manages to make valid statements about love, loyalty and trust, and though of course the ending was a little predictable, it was the how? that really mattered and the final pages did not disappoint, so much so that I had to order the follow-up volume, Fearless, immediately after finishing it. I’m sure I will return to this series again and again.