Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

Super fun and cute! I loved the friendships and characters. My 9 year old daughter loved it as well and wants more!

It was a nice story about friendship and family and fitting into a new place and life. That part of the story was great. I liked all the characters and the story kept a good pace. The illustrations are perfectly placed and work great with the action of the story. The only part I didn’t care for was the magic. It almost seemed like an afterthought to the plot. It wasn’t really needed and it felt like it was just thrown in to complicate things unnecessarily or so that the book could be classified as “fantasy”.

(I did read the 2nd novel in the series and the plot and characters were still excellent. The magic part seemed to be a more important element in the story and it seemed to work much better in book 2.).

Evie wants so much to be able to help out at the family’s new diner – her specialty is creative desserts! When her stepmom tells her she can’t serve food, Evie accidentally makes a wish that brings out the Happily Ever After Rescue Team (H.E.A.R.T.). Princesses from fairy tales arrive to help make her wish come true, except that they don’t really listen to the wish and cause no end of problems instead. This is a fun story about family, friends, magic, and mostly about helping out.

I have to say that I LOVE this book. I read this book as an ARC with my first grade daughter and fell in love with it! The HEART Rescue Team is a group of your favorite princesses' who "rescue" the central characters in unexpected ways. The book is full of recipes, crafts and projects to engage the reader and the story line was great. The details in our the central characters come to their conclusions is wonderful and so key in also helping children learn! I am ready for the next book right now! I found that this book is not only a great chapter book to read with your children but also a wonderful challenge for your children to read out loud to you. I HIGHLY recommend this book to children from first to fourth grade.
Thank you to MacMillian Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this.

Happily Ever After Rescue Team: Agents H.E.A.R.T

By: Sam Hay

Macmillian Children’s Publishing Group

Feiwel and Friends

Publish Date 15 February 2022

Children’s Fiction

100 Book ReviewsProfessional Reader

I would like to first thank both NetGalley and Macmillian for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Good Reads Synopsis:

A young girl’s wish to help out in her family’s seaside café gets out of hand when she accidentally summons a rescue squad of fairytale princesses in this first book of a fun new illustrated chapter book series, Happily Ever After Rescue Team: Agents of H.E.A.R.T.!

After her parents move the family to a new town, all Evie wants is to help out in their new café. But nobody wants a kid—no matter how wonderful of a waitress they are—underfoot. And she does have an unfortunate habit of dropping, and spilling, and crashing!

But, she also has a knack for super-fantastic dessert ideas that could win the best café contest—if only her dad and stepmom would listen!

When her frustrated wish to help accidentally summons a group of fairytale princesses right out of a storybook, Evie finds herself busy fending off their well-meaning attempts to “rescue” her.

Agents of HEART? More like agents of chaos!
…she’s keeping the puppy though.

In the first book of a new series by Spy Penguins author, Sam Hay, Evie learns that new friends, a good book, and a lot of heart are all the ingredients she needs for her own happily ever after

Book Review:

The Good Reads synopsis gives you all you need to know going into this book. I had a great reading this book. I gave it 4 stars. It is a quick read, and I am sure children will enjoy this book and the sequels when they come out.

I love how the family really loves each other even though at first you doubt it. The new friendship is great and interesting how they meet. I also like how they stand up for each other and get along even with the differences.

I recommend this book for children and even adults to read to their children. It is cute and fun.

3.5 ⭐️ Happily Ever After Rescue Team: Agents of H.E.A.R.T. is a fun book that follows Evie who just wants to help in her parent’s diner and make desserts. Evie’s family is new to Lime Bay and they have opened a diner. Evie keeps trying to help, but her stepmom Hannah keeps sending her away. When Evie finds a magical book and accidentally makes a wish, 3 of the princesses in the stories come to life. Although they aren’t exactly helpful, they do make the day exciting! Agents R, C and B don’t understand or really listen to Evie’s wish and they make a mess of things. But, Evie does make new friends along the way and helps her family win a prize for the best diner in town. This is a cute book that would be great for elementary school kids.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

Evie is new to town and has yet to make any new friends but that is okay because her parents have purchased a café and are in a competition for the Best Café Contest. Evie has created the perfect ice cream that is sure to make her family win. Now if only her family would let her help out more on the big day. When she finds a book inside the café and makes the a wish to be more helpful, she unleashes the Agents of H.E.A.R.T. Can they help her become the amazing waitress that she just knows she is? Creating friendships along the way Evie is swept up in a funny adventure to help her family and keep the Agents from H.E.A.R.T. from causing more harm then good.

I really loved this story. I think that kids will truly love the blend of characters they know and love, with them being almost fairy godmothers to Evie. I also enjoyed her positive spin on everything that went wrong. She truly makes a bad situation seem not quite as bad. Her family is very lucky to have her helping them in their café. And I am so glad she finds some friends to help her feel more welcome in her new town. I also think that kids are really going to enjoy all of the crafts, and recipes sprinkled within this book. Such a perfect way to make the book come alive for the readers, just like the characters do for Evie.

Thank you so much to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book.

3.5 rounded up.

Poor Evie learns a lesson that a lot of us do when we get older - fairy tales may not be all they're cracked up to be. But far from depressing, Evie's adventure with three destructively helpful fairy tale princesses - Agents B, R, and C, AKA Beauty, Rapunzel, and Cinderella - is instead a delightful study in what happens when people's intentions are a bit better than their listening skills. The three self-proclaimed Agents of H.E.A.R.T. (Happily Ever After Rescue Team) all desperately want to make Evie's wish come true, but they're so grounded in their own stories that they can't quite understand that what she wants isn't necessarily aligned with what they want.

From an adult perspective, it's a fun way to learn about listening and how good deeds can backfire. As a children's chapter book, it's exciting and has just enough frustration and mild danger to make it a quick read, and the different takes on the princesses should appeal to readers already familiar with them from more standard stories and films. There is a bit of a cliffhanger at the end that may upset kids who are pet-oriented (it's a question of whether or not Evie will be allowed to keep the puppy Agent B found her, as well as the cat her dad wants; stepmom isn't into pets), but otherwise this is very engaging. There's a bit of overuse of a few words ("frock" is the biggest offender), but the writing is otherwise smooth and age-appropriate. The book is simply a lot of fun to read, and hopefully a sequel will appear before too long.

What if you could make wishes and have them granted by fairytale princesses who leap out from the pages of a magical book? What could possibly go wrong? If the princesses you summon call themselves the Agents of H.E.A.R.T., the answer is "a lot". And that's a premise that will keep young kids and possibly their parents) laughing their way through this rollicking chapter book.

Evie's found a magical book after it was left behind in her parent's diner - a diner she wishes she could do more to help her parents. She really wants to be a waitress and make exciting desserts to impress their customers. Evie's sincerity is the strong thread the story hangs on. She *really* wants to help her parents in their new café. She wants them to win the 'best café contest'. She wants to create desserts that will impress the customers. Evie is a genuinely caring and considerate young girl. She's also overly-enthusiastic and more than a little clumsy.

Somewhere between her parents cautious attitude, and the princesses wildly eccentric, well-meaning but always off-course energy, lies Evie's middle ground. She loves her parents and likes the princesses a lot, in spite of the trouble they cause. Ultimately, this is the story of a young girl finding her own way in the world by following her passions and talent. Others will always think they know what's best for her, but Evie needs to find a way to shine on her own terms. Can she do it? That's the hook that will keep readers turning the pages.

My thanks to author Sam Hay, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a digital advance review copy of this book. This review is my honest and unbiased opinion.

I read this book with my eight year old daughter and she absolutely loved it. It was the perfect reading level for her and had a few pictures that added to the story. She laughed out loud several times at the characters antics. It is a chapter book and not a quick read but she enjoyed reading over several reading sessions.

We both loved the pictures and recipes/how to in the book.

This was a really cute chapter book and perfect for kids who love fairy tales. This was a good read and I really loved how much Evie just really wanted to help her family with their café but she was always dropping and breaking things and her step mom just wouldn’t listen to her ideas for desserts for the café. So she accidentally summons a trio of fairytale princesses when she wishes while holding a storybook someone left behind at the café who are determined to grant her wish with disastrous consequences as they just keep making everything so much worse. In the process she meets iris who is the one who left the book and was just trying to make the princesses someone else problem helps her when she comes back to get the book since she felt bad leaving the book as someone else’s problem. So together with Iris’s cousin Zak who is the first person who had the storybook they get the princesses to solve Evie’s wish and they get back into their book. So a really fun start to a series and it will be fun to see what makes the princesses come out next time and who will come out of the storybook.


Thanks to Feiwel & Friends and Netgalley for the complimentary copy of this book in e-book form. All opinions in this review are my own.

This is an exciting new series that I can't wait to read more of. I love how Cinderella, Beauty, and Rapunzel try to bulldoze their way into solving minor problems. This is an entertaining and funny read sure to delight young readers.