Sensing the life in everything : Magic for adults which will make, and break, your heart. Repeatedly.

Who did not, as a small child, believe their toys were alive, or, at least, HOPE they came alive when your back was turned…….and so, yes, reading the synopsis of this book, my heart quickened a little in anticipation of recovering that state of ‘magic, real magic IS the world’, that was some of the place of that child, not ‘pretending’ a toy was alive, but, even if only momentarily, believing.

The fact that this book was being compared to The Night Circus (which I adored, and catapulted me back into that place) was also appealing. The fact that it was compared also to The Miniaturist gave me pause (lacked it, in my opinion). I needn’t have worried. The Night Circus pleasurable shivers of delight up the back of the neck started very early with The Toymakers.

Primarily taking place in 1917 (and making a journey TO that time and place from some 11 years earlier, the Toymakers is set in what any toyshop should really be – a magical place where the maker-of-those-toys really is a true mage and can make the toys live.

Though the period of the First War will occupy a bulk of the book, it will end in the 1950s.

“The most terrible things can happen to a man, but he’ll never lose himself if her remembers he was once a child”

And that ‘primarily set in the period of the First War’ gives, I must warn, a lot of heartbreak to readers. A good author will have us invested in many of their characters – and Dinsdale, on this showing, is a very good author indeed.

“Mightn’t it be…that until you’ve seen the dark, you don’t really know the light”

Do take delight, as much as you can, in the playfulness and yes, that childhood remembered magic in the early part of the book, because payback time of grief will come. Without this reader feeling in any way manipulated, or in any way that the author was mechanically moving any of his sometimes surprising cast of characters around, my heart was being swung between imaginative delight and ‘I can’t take the sorrow of this’ moments.

Readers’ Appropriate Behaviour In A Public Place warning : Do not read in a public place.. If you must, ensure you have a ready supply of tissues. Involuntary cries of ‘oh no, no, no’ whimpers of grief and the like can alarm innocent bystanders.

Brief synopsis and subject matter, avoiding spoilers

Cathy, a young girl, pregnant, single, disgraced, runs away from home in Leigh-on-Sea to London, after seeing a curious, alluring advertisement in a local paper

“Help Wanted…Are you lost? Are you afraid? Are you a child at Heart? So are we. The Emporium opens with the first frost of winter. Sales and stocktaking, no experience required. Bed and board included. Apply in person….”

Cathy becomes winter help in a most extraordinary toy shop, Papa Jack’s Emporium. Papa Jack, originally a man with a different name, and we suspect, a tragic story, set up his extraordinary toyshop, after arriving in this country from Eastern Europe, and Tsarist Russia, the father of two young boys he had not seen for many years.

Papa Jack, originally a carpenter, crafts exquisite toys, out of quality material when he can, but he can also create something extraordinary out of found materials such as pine cones, twigs and grasses. Really extraordinary.

By the time young Cathy reaches the Emporium, it is a famous and established place, financially successful, fabulously strange. Those two young boys, Kaspar and Emil are now also extraordinary toymakers, a little older than Cathy. Fast, loving, supportive brothers; fierce, struggling sibling rivals, both as inheritors of Papa Jack’s love, Papa Jack’s dream for the stability and future of the Emporium, and … well, much more.

“A secret has been revealed, and finally I understand the true meaning of toys….When you are young, what you want from toys is to feel grown-up. You play with toys and cast yourself as an adult, and imagine life the way it’s going to be. Yet, when you are grown, that changes: now, what you want out of toys is to feel young again. You want to be back there, in a place that did not harm nor hurt you, in a pocket of time built out of memory and love”

There are toys here, of course; there is magic, too. What is this book? It is a story of war, it is a story of the tangled web of relationships – parents and children, brothers and sisters, men and women. Not to mention toys themselves. What relationships might they have? What relationships could they have? Dinsdale makes us think about Creation itself, question who we are. He creates puzzles of time and space for us …..we just need to let our imaginations surrender to what once they were

I can’t praise this highly enough. I’m intrigued to discover Dinsdale has written earlier books, and I shall nervously explore them…….nervously because this book is so extraordinary that I would be surprised to have missed a writer so fine, for so long

The challenge is the one a reader has with a book which makes its own world so very much realer than the world we know. What on earth can I read next, that will not disappoint and seem pale and insubstantial? Poor author who has to follow Dinsdale. Not fair!

I received this from NetGalley as a (very well done) digital ARC

Lucky, lucky readers about to start their journey with this one

This was my first book on the theme of magical realism, and I have to say I quite enjoyed it.

Set in a toy shop in London, the book follows the life of Cathy, a pregnant runaway and the life she makes for herself at the Emporium with the Godman family - the father and his two sons who are competing not only for their father's affection but also Cathy's.

The book is only 300 something pages but it seemed never-ending because 1. The story-telling is quite slow, and 2. the book spans 50 years. My only complaint about the book would be that the characters don't seem to stick. However, the author is clearly very talented when it comes to creating imagery with words.

A beautifully magical story that will take your breath away and then break your heart.
The Emporium is a place where magic is created in every toy, and where children and adults alike find the sheer joy of playing with these toys.
Creating these wondrous items is the work of Papa Jack and his two sons, Emil and Kaspar. Competition is rife between the sons to create bigger and more imaginative toys, and when Cathy arrives the competition gets even more personal.
I hope that this will be one of the best selling books of the year, it really is something special.

First of all, I'd like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If I'm being entirely honest, my main motivation for reading this book was the fact that it was described as being similar to The Night Circus. I can see why some people have said that, but I should really know better by now than to pick up any book in the hope that it'll make me feel the same way as a totally different book did - that only ever leads to disappointment.

To be sure, there are some sparkles and flourishes of magic throughout The Toymakers, and it's certainly a very charming novel, but I was definitely expecting it to be more atmospheric throughout. Again, this is a case of my expectations working against me, but there were definitely long stretches of the novel when I felt that the magic just fizzled into nothing. That said, it might not have been a problem if I had felt more attached to the characters, but I didn't feel a real connection to any of them. On that note, one aspect of the book that I found utterly bemusing was the fact that Emil's twin sons are never named? They appear quite frequently in the second half of the book, so it came across as an absolutely bizarre oversight.

I did think that there were some really interesting themes explored here - the costs of war, mental trauma and free will all featured prominently, but personally I always found myself most affected by the parts that focused on memory and nostalgia. There's a very moving scene in the first half of the book involving a kind of flashback which felt like the heart of the whole novel, and I would really have loved to have seen that side of the story explored more! Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of war stories, unless they're even more critical of war than this one was, so when the novel started focusing more on that side of things, instead of the power of memory and the effects of the past, it left me a bit cold.

A lot of this review has been very subjective - speaking a bit more objectively, I found this to be a highly original book, with a very unique spin on the age-old concept of toys coming to life and the universal problem of how to cope when the wonder of childhood inevitably fades. I just found myself disappointed that the magic gradually fades from the narrative as well - because surely fiction is the one place where we can always hope to find that magic? However, I have to say that the final pages were some of the most captivating and beautifully written ones in the whole book, and even though it was nothing like the ending I'd been hoping for, the book certainly finished on a high. All in all, quite an enjoyable book - just not as enchanting as I'd hoped!

When I first requested this book on NetGalley I honestly wasn’t sure what I would think as this isn’t my “usual” kind of book. Now that I’ve finished it I cannot express how glad I am that I took a chance!

The Toymakers is probably going to stay on my list of favourite reads for a long time to come. Without giving too much away, it has quite the mix of genres that all seamlessly work together. It is a coming of age story set against a backdrop of family drama and war. It is a fantastical tale of childhood dreams and wonder, and a tale of heartbreak and loss.

After finishing the last page I was emotionally broken, I was elated and it has been a long time since any book has affected me so.

If you are considering pre-ordering a copy of The Toymakers, don’t hesitate. Do it today.

Many thanks to NetGalley UK and to Ebury Publishing for providing me with an ebook copy of The Toymakers.

I read this novel over Christmas, and it was the last book I read last year. It was the perfect finish to my 2017 reading; not quite what I expected, but something even better.

The cover and blurb for The Toymakers alludes to it being a heart-warming, whimsical Christmas tale. I expected something light-hearted, and I got that in places but a lot more as well. Don’t be fooled by the cute, festive cover – this book has hidden depths.

“Are you lost? Are you afraid? Are you a child at heart? So are we.”

Teenager Cathy is pregnant and scared. She wants to escape the control of her parents and, when she sees this advert in the newspaper, she sees an opportunity to do so. She embarks on a journey to London, to Papa Jack’s Emporium.

In turn-of-the-century London, the Emporium opens at first frost every winter. It’s a magical place of times gone by where anything can happen; the toys could even come to life.

Dinsdale captures the city and era wonderfully, but the star of the story here is the Emporium itself; a toyshop with magic inside its walls, where it seems anything is possible. As Cathy arrives, the shop is in its glory days, loved by all who visit, but the story follows this special place to its inevitable demise.

As I said at the beginning, this book has hidden depths. It opens with a beautiful prologue which promises a cosy Victorian fairytale, but it isn’t just a tale of magic and toys, it’s also a story of war. We follow Cathy, the shop’s owner Papa Jack and his two sons, Kaspar and Emil as WWII hits England.

Kaspar and Emil have always been in a battle for the Emporium, played out with their toy soldiers which bring customers flocking to their doors each season, but when a bigger war rages at their door, they must step up, even if it means leaving the comfort of the Emporium they’ve grown up in behind them.

The Toy Makers is reminiscent of one of my favourite books, The Night Circus in the magical, enchanting prose and the evocative descriptions which bring the magic to life. It also carries that same underlying feeling of darkness, and an ongoing battle – in this case the sibling rivalry between Kaspar and Emil – which underlies the story. Everything ties together beautifully, from the toy soldiers to the real battlefield and the magical realism weaved throughout the novel. The characters are well-drawn and the atmosphere is pitch perfect. Robert Dinsdale casts an an enchanting spell with the Toy Makers, and it’s a magic which everyone should experience.

This is a richly developed yet simple story that revolves around a family of toymakers and the fantastical worlds that they create. Its focus is on character development and how personality and circumstance contrive to stunt or blossom creativity. The book covers an extended period from pre-1st World War through to 1950's. It does this through extensive scenes and rapid transitions. The strength of this is that the reader can observe the key points at which change occurs and then jump forward to see the consequence of this. The downside is that there are gaps in knowledge that can impair the reading experience.

Characterisation is very strong and the characters each have a balanced personality that either has a positive or negative impact on the other characters as well as the plot. Context is important to the story and the magic, both real and impressionistic, of a toy store and the sense of wonder it offers the young is extremely well handled. That true magic occurs and is recognised but not exploited by all who visit the store is an expression of the love felt and cherished by the young visitors. This emotional connection is held through the years and the shop becomes a glowing memory for all. Where characters try to control and capitalise on the magic it slips through their fingers.

Although largely removed from the scenes of trauma, the section of the book that deals with the 1st World War and its impact on the lives it devastated is central to the plot. It explores how movement away from the magical world of the shop to the horrors of war result in enlightenment and personal growth but destroy the illusion.

Ultimately the magic is an expression of the individual characters and reflects their acceptance of all that is possible. That this is not possible for everyone is an inherent part of the story. There is sorry and death in the tale but a great deal of affection.

Highly recommended for those who are old in spirit but young at heart.

This book grabbed me immediately and I was utterly enchanted for the first half. The characters are full and flawed, which makes them likeable and real. The Emporium with all its toys is totally and completely wonderful, I wanted this to be real so I could visit and be a child again. However half way through the story seems to peter out and loses its way. Having said this the ending is good if a little rushed and I enjoyed all of the book for the most part. In my opinion could have been shorter which would have been far more enjoyable.

Atmospheric and enchanting in equal measure, with a touch of darkness, a portrayal of the destructive relationship of two brothers, caused by jealousy and misunderstanding. Lots to enjoy.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book. It was such a lovely story. Cathy Wray finds herself 16 and pregnant in 1906 and instead of going to 'one of those homes' she runs away to Papa Jack's Emporium to become a shop hand. She is enchanted by all the magical toys that are created in the Emporium and this really is the magic of this book.
However, I got halfway through and just felt that it was taking too long to get to the point. There were too many story lines running through the book and each one was so elaborated described and told it just seemed to drag on. The magic was slowly wearing off I'm afraid. I did really want to finish and enjoy this story. The descriptions of the magical toys were so good and enough to capture anyone's imagination, young or old, but I felt I needed more action or disaster to keep me reading.

This book immediately grabbed my attention. The storyline was different and for the most part well thought out and developed. The characters all flawed but also forceful; to some extent self-serving. It would turn into a seriously good film . I did struggle with the ending - felt almost as if the final section should just have been left out or maybe serve as the opening to a second book in a series.

I expected a light-hearted magical read but this was a darker than that. I enjoyed the descriptions of the toys, it really brought them to life.
I struggled to ever get into this though. The characters didn't interest me. I was left confused at times as well. Possibly down to my reading slump.

This is a magical book and a really interesting escapism. It is really descriptive. However, I thought it was overlong and tried to cover too much ground, jumping from one decade to another in the same chapter. The end, when it eventually came, was a surprise. Although the whole book was fanciful, I was disappointed at how it got tied up very end. Great idea,but too long and over complicated.

Oh my word. Where to begin. This book is simply enchanting. As I read it I kept thinking 'is this for children' but then realising that no, it is too sophisticated, the messages too deep for a child's mind.
I didn't want this book to end so caught up was I in the world of the Emporium. I hope someone turns this into a film one day.

I really enjoyed this book, it was a wonderful read, imaginative and very magical . Cathy is young and pregnant, her parents want her to sell her baby once its born but Cathy doesn't want this . She doesn't know what to do but one day her sister gives her a mysterious job advertisement and it seems like a way out of her troubles so she runs away to inquire about the job . She arrives at The Emporium where her life changes forever ...
Set just before, during and after the first world war this is a very emotional read in parts, I had teary eyes during some paragraphs it was very moving . The magical realism is written extremely well I really loved it ,

'Are you a child at heart?'

It's going to be really ironic if the first book I read in 2018 turns out to be my favourite for the entire year but The Toymakers is utterly, utterly brilliant and I absolutely loved it.

The story starts in 1906 with Cathy Wray running away to London to avoid having to give her baby up for adoption. She finds work at a very unusual toy shop called The Emporium, run by Jekabs Godman (Papa Jack) and his two sons, Kaspar and Emil, who are not much older than her. Kasper is the charmer, flirting with all the shop-girls and effortlessly creating the most magical toys, whereas Emil is more serious and specialises in designing the toy soldiers the brothers use to play their 'Long War'.

I loved The Toymakers for its sheer inventive brilliance. Imagine the toy shop equivalent of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Like Doctor Who's TARDIS, The Emporium is bigger on the inside and the aisles are 'alive' with steam trains, toy soldiers, and patchwork animals. The shop opens with the first frost of winter and closes when the first snowdrop flowers on the terrace. The Godmans spend the rest of the year creating their wonderful toys and we get to know a bit more about their lives. I particularly loved the 'instant' trees, which grow into a real forest as soon as their roots touch the ground, and Sirius the patchwork dog. And I definitely fell more than a little bit in love with Kaspar.

The Toymakers deserves to become one of those Christmas classics, enjoyed year after year, although it's not strictly a children's book, more a fairy tale for adults. Along with the magic and romance there are darker, bleaker moments too. We learn of Papa Jack's past as a prisoner in Siberia; the First World War and the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder are also touched on. The only thing about the story I didn't like was that it ended in 1953; I'd have preferred the timeline to have been shorter.

I always find the books I love the most the hardest to write reviews for. I expect it's because I want you to love them as much as I do. So I'll just add that I thoroughly recommend The Toymakers, especially to those who are still a child at heart.



I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of The Toymakers, which will be published on 8th February 2018.

Thank you to Robert Dinsdale, Ebury, and Netgalley for my copy of this book, which I received in exchange for an honest review.

I was invited to read this book by the publishers (via NetGalley) a while ago but saved it to read over the Christmas holiday because it sounded so magical. And it certainly is.

This is the story of a man and his two young sons who move to London from a foreign land and open the most magical toy Emporium ever seen. But while there is the magic and joy of the Emporium there is also the reality and devastation of war and family rivalry, which ultimately brings a very sombre tone to the story. The story is so dark and sad at times that it almost became too difficult for me to continue reading after such a wondrous beginning.

A fantastic story full of magical realism, and I particularly loved Sirius, the patchwork dog.

1917 and Cathy is in a tricky situation, pregnant, underage and on course to be sent to a home for unmarried mothers when a curious advert catches her eye. So begins her journey from Kent into the magical world of The Emporium, the home of clockwork patchwork dogs, paper trees, wooden soldiers marching to do battle in a long war and most importantly the brothers Emil and Kaspar. The brothers' rivallry and jealousy does not end when one goes to war and eventually develops into an unexpected wholly darker form. This is a story which twists and turns as much as the branches of the strange paper trees in The Emporium.

What an absolutely stunning, beautiful story this is. I know the year has only just begun but I think I will be hard pushed to find a book to rival this one this year. I want to say it is the best book and the MUST Read of 2018 but being that it is only the 6th January it wouldn’t do it justice, and as clichéd as it is – This really is, no matter the age, a MUST read for anyone and everyone! I can’t stress to you how blindingly good this book truly is.

This book conjures up the grand opulence of movies such as The Greatest Showman and the wonder and magic of books such as Caraval or The Night Circus and then takes them to a whole new level. The Toymakers is in a league of its own and shines even brighter than any star ever seen.

Another over used cliché but none the less true – I literally couldn’t put it down, the kids had to fend for themselves and I even had them fetching me cups of tea! I started reading 9pm Thursday evening and I was still reading 8am Friday morning, sleep didn’t even occur to me I was that engrossed. Suffice to say no housework got done at all Friday as I HAD to finish the book.

I can already see this book being a spectacular big budget movie, it would look amazing up on the big screen and I know this household would pay to watch it!

It begins in London 1917 and follows the lives of Papa Jack and his two sons, Kaspar and Emil in their wonderful Emporium and a young runaway girl, Cathy, who comes to the Emporium looking for work and a place of safety, all the way through to 1953.

Full of magic and wonder Papa Jack’s Toy Emporium is a place to behold, you can feel the enthusiasm of the children and adults alike and is a place you never want to leave. But as is with everything in life, real life can’t be ignored, bringing the war to the establishment, forever changing the lives within.

The ending wasn’t what I was expecting, not that I knew what to expect and there as a twist in the tale that had me wanting to shout out loud – Noooooo and shaking my head in disbelief!

Blending historical fiction and magical realism together to create a magical world full of passion, inspiration, imagination, love, secrets, loss and fear that will always stay with you long after the last page has been read.

I was first drawn to this book due to the cover art, I thought it really intriguing and expected to find a great adventure between its pages. It was just approaching winter and it reminded me of the big toystores you see in cities, preparing for the Christmas rush.

Our story begins with Cathy and her mother speaking to the owner of a large house – where unmarried women go to have their children. The children are taken away – I assume to be fostered, and the mother can return to her family and continue her life. When presented with a newspaper she stumbles upon the advertisement of a place at Papa Jack’s Toy Emporium in London. Cathy herself is from Leigh, a small seaside town in rural Essex, so running away to London, whilst pregnant, shows she really felt so alone back home, and thought this the only way to help her unborn child and have any chance of helping her.

The initial 50% of the story is a fantasy; a toystore that opens on the first frost of the year, all the way through until the thaw. For the rest of the year Papa Jack, his sons, and a few carefully selected craftsmen work diligently to prepare the store with enough toys for the next First Frost. Cathy is taken into the Emporium family in an instant, though as Christmas approaches, and then passes, Cathy is terrified of the day she must leave the Emporium as it closes.

The world building is magical, there are fantastic toys on the shelves making for wonderful adventures in the store itself for children and adults alike; instant paper trees, a wendy house that’s larger on the inside than on the out, clockwork patchwork animals who have souls and personalities (I want one of these), and of course toy soldiers, who do battle and seem to be able to strategize.

Soon enough, the “Great War” comes to London, and many of the men at the toystore are called off overseas to fight, this is where the story takes a much darker turn, and begins to explore the horrors of war, how they change a woman/man, and the impact on families. Coming home from war isn’t as simple as it sounds, and there can be lasting effects.

I felt like of all characters, Cathy was who we got to know in the greatest detail; it is told from her point of view, so we do not so much see interactions between the brothers Kaspar, and Emil, nor do we see much of other people in the story. However in some ways this probably avoided overcomplicating the novel; with the mixture of fantasy, and historical fiction, it’s a delicate balance – too much fantasy may take away from the more serious war angle, and too much of this would take away from the magic.

In terms of writing style, I thought it was perfect, holding a certain formality suitable to the era in which its set, but not making it difficult for the modern-day reader who is used to a different language structure.

This wasn’t really what I expected of the book, though that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it in the end. It was much more serious than I anticipated though I would recommend this to those who enjoy both fantasy and historical fiction genres, as this proves to be a great combination of the two.

Overall I’m awarding this book a 4*/5. It was an enjoyable and magical read, with rich descriptions and artistic world building. I would’ve liked to know Kaspar and Emil, maybe Papa Jack more, but it isn’t a limiting factor of the book. The writing was easy to follow, and it was a delightfully enchanting story, capable of bringing out the child in all of us.

Do you remember when you believed in magic?