Olde School by Selah Janel – Review

About the book Olde School Olde School

• Paperback: 428 pages
• Publisher: Seventh Star Press, LLC (March 18, 2014)

Kingdom City has moved into the modern era. Run by a lord mayor and city council (though still under the influence of the High King of The Land), it proudly embraces a blend of progress and tradition. Trolls, ogres, and other Folk walk the streets with humans, but are more likely to be entrepreneurs than cause trouble. Princesses still want to be rescued, but they now frequent online dating services to encourage lords, royals, and politicians to win their favor. The old stories are around, but everyone knows they’re just fodder for the next movie franchise. Everyone knows there’s no such thing as magic. It’s all old superstition and harmless tradition.

Bookish, timid, and more likely to carry a laptop than a weapon, Paddlelump Stonemonger is quickly coming to wish he’d never put a toll bridge over Crescent Ravine. While his success has brought him lots of gold, it’s also brought him unwanted attention from the Lord Mayor. Adding to his frustration, Padd’s oldest friends give him a hard time when his new maid seems inept at best and conniving at worst. When a shepherd warns Paddlelump of strange noises coming from Thadd Forest, he doesn’t think much of it. Unfortunately for him, the history of his land goes back further than anyone can imagine. Before long he’ll realize that he should have paid attention to the old tales and carried a club.

Darkness threatens to overwhelm not only Paddlelump, but the entire realm. With a little luck, a strange bird, a feisty waitress, and some sturdy friends, maybe, just maybe, Padd will survive to eat another meal at Trip Trap’s diner. It’s enough to make the troll want to crawl under his bridge, if he can manage to keep it out of the clutches of greedy politicians.

Buy, read, and discuss Olde School

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Goodreads


About the author, Selah Janel Selah Janel

Selah Janel has been blessed with a giant imagination since she was little and convinced that fairies lived in the nearby state park or vampires hid in the abandoned barns outside of town. The many people around her that supported her love of reading and curiosity probably made it worse. Her e-books The Other Man, Holly and Ivy, and Mooner are published through Mocha Memoirs Press. Lost in the Shadows, a collection of short stories celebrating the edges of ideas and the spaces between genres was co-written with S.H. Roddey. Her work has also been included in The MacGuffinThe Realm BeyondStories for Children MagazineThe Big Bad: an Anthology of EvilThe Grotesquerie, and Thunder on the BattlefieldOlde School is the first book in her new series, The Kingdom City Chronicles, and is published through Seventh Star Press. She likes her music to rock, her vampires lethal, her fairies to play mind games, and her princesses to hold their own.

Connect with Selah

Blog | Facebook


My Thoughts

I don’t read a lot of true fantasy anymore, but there was a time when I was reading it voraciously. Still, it’s a genre I go back to when something interesting or original crosses my path, and in this case, the result – reading Selah Janel’s Olde School – was a sheer delight.

From the first scene in Trip Trap’s diner (frequented mainly by trolls and shepherds) I was hooked on Janel’s writing style, and on the world she created. Paddlelump, her main character, is fantastically different from any character I’ve ever read, and Kingdom City is a place I’d love to visit for a couple of days.

Janel spins a fun-filled yarn that gives a nod to pop culture and the current love of modernizing classic tales, but it’s just a nod. There’s nothing in Olde School that doesn’t feel fresh, interesting, and completely awesome.

So many times we forget that reading is entertaining as well as educational. Olde School is a reminder that it’s okay for something to be funny, smart, and completely engaging without necessarily requiring us to be made aware of the popular cause of the moment or disease du jour. Moreover, it reminds us that the best thing any of us can be is ourselves.

Read this book. Seriously, you won’t stop smiling for like a week, after.


TLC Book Tours

This review is part of a blog tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours. To see the complete list of tour stops, scroll down. For more information, click HERE.

Monday, October 13th: Must Read Faster

Tuesday, October 14th: Booksie’s Blog

Wednesday, October 15th: Priscilla and Her Books

Thursday, October 16th: Sidewalk Shoes

Friday, October 17th: Reading Reality

Thursday, October 23rd: Bibliotica

Monday, October 27th: Dab of Darkness

Tuesday, October 28th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Wednesday, October 29th: Fuelled by Fiction

Thursday, October 30th: Book Marks the Spot

Monday, November 3rd: Bookie Wookie