Josie Fowler and the Mirror of Ankusha is the first book that I have read by Maria Schindlecker.

This fantasy novel takes Josie on a journey that she never expected to take to find her missing uncle through a magical mirror.
She finds herself in a magical and unknown world where there is more danger than she could have expected if she has any hopes of bringing him home safely as well as herself and the young man who has chosen to accompany her.

Josie Fowler and the Mirror of Ankusha has an engaging premise in the blurb and I was eager to dive into this book.
The book holds promise, but the pace is rather slow which is disappointing for me.

Josie's uncle has been missing for a while now when this story begins, but there isn't really a lot of background laid before the story shifts to this unknown world.
Josie honestly doesn't come off as the type to just jump into an adventure and go chasing after someone blindly, but that's what she does.

Now, this book does have some good moments while Josie is in this fantasy world.
There are some good descriptions of the scenes and a few decent ones of the characters.

The pace of the story is pretty even throughout, but it's a bit too slow for my liking. I wanted the pace to gradually pick up and become more engaging, but it never really does.

It had a lot of potential but just doesn't fully reach it which is disappointing.

this was a great young adult Fantasy Adventure, it was a great story with interesting characters and a great plot. It was a fun read.

The book was a nice story to read. The fact that everything happened that fast made me have the feeling that this could have more to say about the characters and about the entire world of Ankusha.
First, I appreciate a fantasy novel according to the complexity of the world imagined by the author- this novel here has great potential and I like this travel through the mirror. After all, this is the most wonderful feature of fantasy: the freedom to imagine new universes. The second criterion is the writing. As free as constraints are fantasy, it remains a literary genre and the author's literary grace is very important. And the last criterion are the characters. As impressive as the imagined universe may be, if it is not populated by credible characters with whom we can identify, the pleasure of reading will not be complete and here I did not really found very credible the love triangle or the fact that Josie after all the trauma gathered there she was so flower power and the author has not insisted on Josie’s emotions and the entire action has just cut important aspects.
I do hope the author will continue with some novels in the same universe.

This was a very short ad awesome read. I loved the way it was written. It's an adventure that takes us to an other world. I liked that the book isn't slow. Si ce the first pages the author takes us to a marvelous world where Josie discovers Ankusha. The traveling to the another realm through the mirror is a very good idea. Yes, we already know a lot of stories where the characters travel to another world. And this book was like jumping into an interesting adventure. The book isn't boring. For me it was like watching some old movie like John Carter or The Mommy. The only thing I didn't like, maybe, the story was too short. I needed a little more of description, action, I don't know. Maybe more pages are needed for Josie's and Peter's relationship in the beginning. By the way, it was good and lovely read.

Josie Fowler and the Mirror of Ankusha is a story about Josie trying to find her missing uncle after a mysterious package arrives at her doorstep. While this book had adventure and love and mystery, I struggled to connect with Josie herself. She lacked depth of character and had a small range of emotions.

The premise of this book was really fascinating, but the story just didn't do the idea justice. Josie was a bland character and the love triangle she was involved in seemed superficial and I didn't find myself caring either way which man she ended up with. Her love of her uncle was sweet, but there didn't seem to be much substance to the emotion. One moment that especially irked me was a particular scene with Josie (trying to avoid spoilers) that was pretty devastating, but it was never really discussed seriously and seemed kind of like a throw-away event, despite the horrific implications surrounding it. This book had a lot of potential, but I struggled with caring about the characters and the story as a whole.