The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

I don't think I've really seen this book mentioned much of anywhere since it was published last year (and was a NYT bestseller) so I just wanted to get The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland back on the radar. I personally put it off for a while because it is like 750 pages long and I had no idea if it would be a slog. But then it was summer and, well, what else did I need to do but read a massive book that I only remembered picking up because it sounded like exactly my kind of story? It turns out that it was exactly what I needed to do. It was a perfect summer vacation read and was TOTALLY my kind of story (and it cleared a huge spot on my TBR shelf that fit like two or three new books). I flew through this tale of time travel and history and technology and witchcraft with eagerness and joy.

This alternate history story is mostly told by Melisande Stokes, a story she rushes to get onto paper as she waits in 1851 for an unlikely miracle to get her back to the present day before she gets stuck in the past forever by the end of magic. Because, in this history, magic exists until some event in 1851 causes it to end, leaving witches powerless and the world irretrievably changed -- or is it?! Linguist Melisande is approached by Tristan Lyons (of the mysterious organization D.O.D.O.) and asked to translate specific historical documents in an attempt to find out what magic was and if it could possibly be restored. The rest of the book is part adventure, part moral tale, and all amazing.

I love time travel and I love magic and I love science fiction tech and they all worked together so well in this book. I actually keep picking up time travel books this summer for some reason (and I haven't even gotten to To Say Nothing of the Dog yet!) and each leaves me thinking about something different. This one made me wonder what subtle nudges we could have given our society to be in a better place right now. Maybe convince Trump's dad to donate that first million to a worthy cause instead of giving it to his loser son? Who knows where we would be now.

Wishing for a science-fictional world,
K

New Releases: The Ferryman Institute and All Our Wrong Todays

After these two review copies, I will be caught up on reviews. Yay! Considering this first one was the book that finally interested me after the election last November, you will agree that I have been in a bit of a slump. It's nice to have the time and will to do some of the things I love again.

The Ferryman Institute by Colin Gigl was indeed the book that finally got me reading again after the shock and horrors of the election. I needed a true escape and I found it with Charlie Dawson, ferryman extraordinaire. Ferrymen are the ones who are there at the moment you die, meant to help you head to the afterlife. Charlie is the best at the Institute but the job has taken its toll on his sanity and he wants nothing more than to leave and rest. Then he gets a mysterious assignment where he is given a choice whether or not to save someone from suicide. His choice changes everything.

I got so lost in this book. It was deep and dark, delving into hopelessness and depression, but beautiful. There are chase scenes but also long, thoughtful talks with friends. There's even a romance -- though I didn't find it very probable. It reminded me of a Georgette Heyer mystery where two people bicker non-stop through the entire novel and then VOILA, they are madly in love, with no logical reason why. But, as with Heyer's improbable couples, it didn't really affect my enjoyment of the book. I loved its quirkiness and heart and plan on rereading it at some point.

You've probably seen All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai around. It has been getting a lot of press and publicity. It's a pretty basic story -- boy grows up in ideal future, loses his mom and best girl, messes with his dad's time machine, and inadvertently screws everything up, giving us, well, the "dystopian today" you and I are living now. He then has to decide whether to find a way to reset the future, restoring the people who ended up not existing in this timeline, or accepting the current timeline where his mom is still alive, his best girl is even better, and there's a sister who he is beginning to love.

Mastai is a screenwriter and this book definitely reads like a movie. That's not a bad thing. In fact, if you're having trouble focusing on books for any particular reason right now, this might be a good one to pick up. The time travel is very well thought out and is different from any method or process I've read about before. There are also some serious philosophical questions to ponder and I definitely kept thinking about them days after finishing the book. (Also, I have an extra ARC of this one if anyone wants me to send it their way.)

Wishing for that alternate today or an unexpected way out,

K

#RIPXI : 9, City of Death

Based on Jean's recent review, my enjoyment of Shada, and a need for something funny and light during this more and more depressing time in America, I picked up City of Death by James Goss, based on Douglas Adams' screenplay and David Fisher's original ideas. It's another Doctor Who episode from the Tom Baker era with the addition of some of Adams' original ideas that didn't make it into the episode. It has a super evil alien villain, a dude who is trying to build a device for time travel and, consequently, Earth annihilation. He's also an art collector and a husband and, well, he isn't quite as one-dimensional as you would expect. The story wasn't quite as funny or as light as I thought it would be but it was still a really fun read. The majority of the story takes place in Paris and it was a wonderful escape as well. I wouldn't actually mind hopping a plane there right now. If you would like some peril this season (RIP *or* election) that isn't too horrific or dark, this is a great choice!

Also, in related news, I really miss Douglas Adams. I really miss Terry Pratchett as well. I got an email from Amazon the other day announcing a new release of short stories of his (The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner and Other Stories - out on January 3rd) and I almost started crying because there's a good chance this is the last "new" book. Why are there so many crap people in this world who live nice, long lives when there are outstanding ones who don't? And yes, I'm feeling a bit awful about our world right now. How did you know? Maybe I should just go into hiding for the next couple of weeks. But then I would miss Readathon on Saturday and that would be a real tragedy.

Escaping to the City of Light,

K

My Chapter Book Summer

In an effort to clear my TBR bookcase more quickly, I, of course, picked up a few of the chapter books that I had sitting around.

I mentioned Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer in my RMODB post last month but I wanted to sing its praises one more time.

Charlotte heads off to boarding school and, as she is first in the dormitory, she gets her pick of beds. She decides on the one with the fancy wheels by the window and thus begins an unbelievable adventure. Every other morning, she wakes up forty years in the past, during the First World War, in the body of a girl named Clare.

Once again I am going to lament that my suburban Southern California library didn't have a selection of British children's fiction for me to fall in love with when I was a kid. I don't know what last prompted this complaint but it might have been Tom's Midnight Garden or The Children of Green Knowe. These are all books that would have stretched my imagination and started my Anglophilia early.

There are a lot of similarities between Eva Ibbotson's children's fantasies and they are, coincidentally, the things that make me love them the most -- a strong respect for nature, a distaste for spoiled, thoughtless people, and a belief in secret creatures. The Secret of Platform 13 is a simple story about an abducted fantasy-land prince and the attempt by a motley crew to rescue him from the horrid London home of an early version of the Dursleys.

Ibbotson's books aren't the most complex but they are possibly the most thoughtful. I fall in love with her a little bit more with each sweet tale.

This one wasn't technically on my TBR because it was an ARE but it was sitting unread in my house and so it eventually had to be read, right? The Extincts by Veronica Cossanteli delivers just what it says in the title, a whole bunch of amazing, supposedly extinct or very mythological creatures on a secret farm. George gets a job at Wormestall Farm and also makes a new friend -- Prudence, whose evil stepmother is an evil taxidermist who would love to get her horrid, evil hands onto the special creatures (to murder them and stuff them).

This was a crazy, fun story! The creatures were AMAZING and Prudence's mother was a terrifying villain. And did I mention the creatures? Because now I really want a farm with some lovely aurochs, a unicorn, a couple of dodos, and maybe even an ichthyosaur in the pond. I'll skip the toilet kraken though! (See, now you have to read it to find out about that ...)

Did you read any fun chapter books this summer?

Craving time travel and dodos,

K

Books That I've Read Lately But Haven't Reviewed Because They Were Weird

My stack of books to review has been sitting here a while and I keep picking up books from it and then setting them back down and I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized ... it's because they're weird.

I got Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia from the library because Jenny raved about it. This book about high school musicians at a statewide event at a big old hotel (The Bellweather) who get snowed in was full of ups and downs. There was a suicide mystery and that was totally not the main point of the book at all. The point was all of the strange people that it skipped between -- the aged concierge, the twins (chorus and bassoon), the Scottish conductor that is missing fingers,and the music teacher/chaperone who is severely damaged because of the harridan mother/musician/teacher. All of the people were interesting but they were also just all so ... crazy. I had lots of feelings during the book but I can't figure out what exactly to say about them. Was the book good? Yes-ish. It was weird.

Mendoza in Hollywood is the third in Kage Baker's Company series. Mendoza is sent to the hills of what will eventually be Hollywood in a time before Los Angeles even exists. She stays in a roadside inn with a few other immortal cyborgs, one of whom is obsessed with early cinema. So, this story is really just a lot of California history and some very long passages where the group sits and watches a classic silent film and the reader gets a scene by scene walkthrough of it. Very little actually happens except for a weird time glitch that is pushed off to be explained at a later time. I did however love the California history as I am actually a 5th generation Californian and my great-great-grandfather was a main figure in making Los Angeles habitable. So, it was the history of a region that is literally in my blood. But there was the lack of actual story and the really LONG film parts, so this wasn't my favorite Company novel but I still liked it quite a bit. But, well, it was weird too.

Elijah's Mermaid by Essie Fox has probably been sitting on my review pile the longest. I really liked Fox's first book The Somnambulist but this one didn't really work for me. It's got artists and prostitutes and families but they are all broken and creepy. But if you liked The Crimson Petal and the White (which I didn't) you will probably like this one. I felt the same about both, that some parts were just too gratuitous for my tastes. And, well, some things in this book were just weird.

And finally there is Penny Dora and the Wishing Box, a graphic novel for tweens. Penny finds a mysterious Christmas present left on her front porch and it turns out to be a box that grants wishes. Penny makes the mistake of showing it to her best friend and that horrid friend "borrows" it and goes all megalomaniac with it, eventually making Penny her servant. The friend was seriously awful, the art was sometimes, well, not good, and this story was not the magical tale I was expecting. It was super weird and negative.

Is there a book sitting on your review stack that you just aren't sure how to review?

Clearing the weird,
K

New Release: Arcadia

Out today in the US (last September in the UK) is Iain Pears' Arcadia. Each of his novels has moved into new territory and he manages to excel in every genre, every setting, and with a continually diverse set of characters. He is also a master of novels with multiple narratives and this one takes the cake as most complex so far. Pears even created an app that allows the reader to follow a single narrative if desired, rather than moving back and forth through space and time (although this doesn't seem to be mentioned in the US publicity so I'm not sure if the app is only available in the UK).

You may know Arcadia as a utopia, first inspired by the writings of the poet Virgil and the idyllic Greek province of the same name. There is no literal Arcadia in this novel but the idea of a utopia is played with, both in how to return to one from a heavily-damaged world and also which elements would be necessary to construct one from scratch. I won't go into the characters or plots in the book, mostly because it's so incredibly complex and I honestly wouldn't know where to stop. Just know that the book starts in 1960 Oxford with professor (and British spy) Henry Litten and it ends up somewhere you would never expect.

I have read all of Pears' novels (including his art mystery series) and this might be my favorite of them all. I really liked An Instance of the Fingerpost but the sci-fi/time travel aspect of this one has pushed it ahead. I loved the elements that reminded me of Connie Willis and Kage Baker's novels and I appreciated the parallels to worlds like Narnia. I also jotted down Fahrenheit 451 so there must have been some elements of that story in this one as well. But this novel was so much more than the sum of its parts and narratives. I enjoyed every moment of reading it.

Deconstructing the complex,
K

#DWJMarch: Book Highlight -- A Tale of Time City

A Tale of Time City

1987

Science Fiction

Evacuee Vivian Smith is kidnapped by two boys who take her much farther away from 1939 London than she was expecting. Now the three of them have to unearth the history and secrets of Time City to save the city and to get Vivian home.

Reviews

Here There Be Books, November 2013

Novel Reaction, April 2011

Sam Downing, April 2012

Teabag Central, August 2010

The Book Smugglers, July 2012

We Be Reading, August 2012

Share your A Tale of Time City love today!

All The Books I Haven't Reviewed Yet This Year

My friends, I have not been the best blogger this year. I started out well but my productivity dropped off when real life stepped up with a few stresses and challenges. Consequently, I've ended up with a nice stack of books that haven't been reviewed. I want to at least mention the books because many of them are fantastic. I also want to put this stack of books away and start fresh in the new year. So bear with me as I take you on a whirlwind tour of a dozen or so books!

(Apologies for the poor quality pictures. I was in a hurry to get this post going. The notebook on the left that is propping up all of the books is my short story journal.)

First up are the children's books, three of which Z and I read together at bedtime --

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce was a super fantastic book about a twelve-year-old boy, Liam, who pretends he's an adult (he looks old for his age) and ends up lost in space with four other children. This book is his attempt to explain how he got there. Z and I both loved this book. It's very British and also very engaging.

Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell (in the UK), was hilarious and also very British since I ordered a beautiful slipcased edition (signed by both author and illustrator) from Foyle's Bookstore and had it shipped over the pond! Though the book was a little young for Z, he didn't mind one bit. Personally, I loved how Riddell made the dad look like Neil himself.

The Templeton Twins Have an Idea by Ellis Weiner, illustrated by Jeremy Holmes, was a fun enough read but it never quite grabbed Z's interest. There is a saucy narrator that just seemed to annoy him though I'm sure other kids would find that voice hilarious. I loved how the kids each used their own individual talents to their advantage.

A Great and Complicated Adventure by Toon Tellegen, illustrated by Jessica Ahlberg and translated by Martin Cleaver, is a book of very short bedtime tales that were originally published in Dutch. I read them quickly on my own one afternoon and ended up perplexed but amused. The stories are quite strange and yet I had one or two kids come immediately to mind who would probably enjoy them immensely.

Next is a non-fiction read --

I finally finished Reflections: On the Magic of Writing by Diana Wynne Jones, which I began during DWJ March. I savored this book all year long and learned so much, both about DWJ and about storytelling. And, of course, a highlight of my year was having the foreword signed by Neil Gaiman.

I have two books of short stories on the stack --

Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron, edited by Jonathan Strahan is a wonderful collection of witch stories. I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity and quality. There was only one story I didn't enjoy. The ones I loved most were from Diana Peterfreund, Garth Nix, Patricia A. McKillip, Tim Pratt, Isobelle Carmody, Jim Butcher and Peter S. Beagle. Close on their heels were tales by Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Ellen Kushner, Jane Yolen and Margo Lanagan. As you can see from the names, this is a star-studded collection!

Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa was a read-together with Natalie but she also had real life get in the way and so we never got the chance to write about these strange and definitely dark tales. The word "disturbing" pops up more than once in the blurbs on the back of the book and it's a fantastic descriptor. I also used the word "creepy" in my notes. The stories begin as separate entities but then start weaving together in big and small ways. I found my biggest confusion arose from the question of gender in many of the stories. There weren't enough clues and many times I was reading the story from the wrong gender perspective until sometime near the end when it was revealed clearly. It was very disorienting and I'm not sure if that was purposeful on Ogawa's part or if it was a consequence of translation.

Then we have the adult fiction --

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis is another of her time travel "series" (in quotes because they really all are perfect stand-alone books with only brief reference to the other adventures and some character sharing). This was a trip back to the Middle Ages and it was amazing but long. It's my least favorite of the time travel novels but probably only because the others are set in times that I know more about.

The Counterfeit Guest by Rose Melikan is also a series book but would work well as a stand-alone. It's a fun adventure/mystery with a strong female lead and a wee bit of romance. If you want to start at the beginning, the first book is The Blackstone Key.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens is only half of a story and though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I felt out of sorts for days after finishing it. I finally realized that it was because I was annoyed at not being able to continue with the story! I think that Dickens wrote some of his most complex characters for this novel and his pacing was perfect. It is a tragedy that he never finished writing the story.

Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield is one I purposefully avoided reviewing. I just don't know what to say about it. It was okay but not great or memorable in the way that her first novel was.

And finally a few series books --

The Grey King and Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper were the last two books in the Dark is Rising Sequence. The Grey King was amazing and made me want to travel to Wales immediately. Silver on the Tree suffered a bit from my timing in picking it up, being the book that I read over the Christmas holiday. I was busy and it took longer than it should have and so I kept losing track of the story. Still, I think this was an amazingly deep and complex series and I truly hope that Z enjoys it in the coming years.

Seventy-Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler is the third Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery though these are books that could be read on their own as they skip around in time. This one takes place in the middle of Arthur Bryant and John May's careers -- 1970's London. It was a crazy roller-coaster story of murders and phobias and I am definitely looking forward to picking up the next book.

Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures by Walter Moers is the second Zamonia book and I put off reading it for a long time because Rumo was not a very exciting character in the first book. That was a mistake because this book was fantastic. I don't even know how to begin to explain this book or series but if you are looking for something completely different, this is it. If you don't enjoy the absurd or fantastic, then don't read it.

If you're still reading, thank you,
K

New Release: The Obsidian Blade

I'm trying to branch out a bit in my science fiction reading so I accepted a review copy of The Obsidian Blade, the first book in a new YA trilogy, The Klaatu Diskos, by Pete Hautman. This was a story with lots of action, compelling characters and a truly world-threatening situation. It was a quick read though it deals with some weighty issues.

Tucker is a teenager who becomes very confused when his father disappears off of the roof of their house and he sees a shimmering in the air at the very spot where it happened. But his dad returns an hour later, walking up the street with a strange foreign girl in tow, acting like nothing happened. When Tucker's mom then starts exhibiting strange emotional symptoms, he wonders if there is something to those unearthly shimmering disks in the sky. There's only one way to find out ...

This book has a bit of everything -- time travel, future dystopia, mysterious beings and hyper-advanced technology. It incorporates a lot of different elements but I was definitely able to keep up with it all. Tucker was a great character, as was his uncle Kosh. Their actions were fully supported by their experiences. I wasn't quite as happy with Tucker's parents. His father's emotional distance and motivation were both suspect. And some readers might be put off by Hautman's use of religious and biblical events in the father's story. The plot line of Tucker's mother's mental illness and diagnosis bothered me too. I still would like to know what has happened to all of them, though, so I will look for the next book in the series when it comes out.

Sticking to one timeline,
K

A Weighty Pair: Blackout and All Clear

To save you the trouble of picking up one of these books without the other, I've gone ahead and merged Connie Willis' hefty Blackout and All Clear into a single 1132 page tome (which is also the way I read it). Look at how seamlessly the books fit together! Wikipedia actually calls it "two volumes that comprise a [single] novel" and that's the truth. It was meant to be a single book but then, as Willis says in the Acknowledgements at the beginning of each book, "it morphed from one book into two". What she ended up creating, regardless of length or format, was an amazing story that was entirely engaging from beginning to end. It got me through a snowstorm that kept us trapped on our property for an entire week and I definitely have to thank Connie for that!

Continuing with the world that Willis explored previously in the short story Fire Watch and the novels The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, this is the tale of time-traveling historians Merope, Michael and Polly from Oxford in the year 2060, who independently head to WWII England and become a much larger part of the war effort than they ever imagined they would and certainly more than they thought possible under the rules of time travel. Skipping between narratives, including a couple told by initially unknown persons, this is a complex web that keeps the reader thinking, guessing and, ultimately, hoping and praying.

In 2011, this dyptych won the Nebula award for Best Novel, the Locus award for Best Science Fiction Novel and the Hugo for Best Novel. And it's not a mere matter of luck that she also was nominated for (and usually won) these same awards for the previous two novels set in this future of time travel and historical interest. The level of depth that she plumbs to make the world tangible and believable is nothing short of amazing. I frequently felt that I too had been transported to another time while reading. I found myself sitting in a packed tube station, waiting out a night of bombing during the Blitz. I looked into the burning mess of ships that was Dunkirk in May of 1940. And I held my breath as incendiary devices fell on St. Paul's Cathedral and threatened to set the wooden roof timbers ablaze. I'm still not entirely sure that Connie Willis isn't a time traveler who experienced these events firsthand!

And, lest this sounds like too gushy of a review, I had one small complaint -- that this story was split into two books. I am a reader who frequently goes back to look things up that I read previously and it was difficult when I couldn't remember if the passage I was thinking of was earlier in All Clear or all the way back in Blackout. Yeah, that's my complaint. Not really a deal-breaker, is it?

You still have time (until the end of February) to pick something up for the 2012 Science Fiction Experience. If you aren't sure where to start with the Oxford series, Connie's blog has an Oxford Time Travel Guide. It even has links to read or listen to the short story Fire Watch, which I will be doing soon. I just don't want to get through everything too quickly because I love this world and don't know if she will write another story in it. That said, I fully anticipate reading Fire Watch and The Doomsday Book before the end of the year.


Finally, congratulations are in order as Connie Willis was also just named a Grand Master of Science Fiction in January. And, as these books are just a drop in the bucket of her collected works, can anyone suggest what I should read of hers next after I finish these books?

Wishing I could travel back and read these again for the first time,
K

New Release: The Emerald Atlas

The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens is one of those books that you almost regret reading so soon after it's published because you want so badly to be able to read the second and third books in the series immediately after finishing the first. The up-side is that when the second book in the Books of Beginning trilogy is released, there won't be any hesitation in doing a quick re-read of this one first! In fact, I think there would be a lot to get out of a re-read of this complex story.

This is an intense middle grade novel that follows three pseudo-orphans: Kate, Michael and Emma. Their parents were forced to give them up at a young age for their own safety and, though they promised to return for them, the kids have spent years going from one orphanage to another. Finally, they have hit what they hope is rock-bottom and are sent to the mysterious Dr. Pym and his decrepit orphanage in a town that may or may not exist and where they appear to be not only the lone children in the mansion but also the only children in the town. It's not long after they arrive there that they are swept up in the world that they were supposed to be protected from -- the world of magic.

Even as a stand-alone novel, this is a wonderful story. There were some elements that were a bit derivative of other fantasy stories but that is true of almost all fantasy these days. The way this book was written is fresh and exciting and I had a great time reading it. For a middle grade novel, I was impressed by the depth of some of the plot lines and the terrible things that the children had to face. And yet nothing seemed inappropriate for a young, adventurous reader. There were also some great adult characters in the story -- the caretaker Abraham, the warrior Gabriel and the charming Dr. Pym. In fact, I'm having trouble finding my next read because nothing else seems interesting after finishing this adventure!

I have to admit that I'm even tempted to use these iron-on templates to make myself an Emerald Atlas t-shirt. And as for which copy to buy (since we have an ARC, which is not very satisfying when contemplating a re-read), it will be very hard to choose between the U.S. cover (above) and the U.K. one to the left. They are both pretty awesome!

Waiting for the rest of the adventure,
K


Support our site and buy The Emerald Atlas (Books of Beginning) on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received an Advance Review Copy but will be buying a finished copy for our home library.

"The sun shone down on the remarkable island of Manhattan ..."

This is going to be short and sweet.  Linda Buckley-Archer's Gideon Trilogy is a fantastic series.  You can read my thoughts on the first book and the second book or you can just take my word that it's worth reading and go out and get this one, The Time Quake, as well as The Time Travelers and The Time Thief.  If you like youth series like Harry Potter or His Dark Materials, historical fiction or time travel, you will probably love this series.

I'm not going to summarize this third volume because of the whole spoiler thing but, again, these three books follow a single plot line so they are best read in order.  They tell the story of two children, Peter and Kate, who get thrown back in time by an experiment gone wrong.  In the past they meet true friends but also formidable villains.  Their only wish is to get back to their families but repairing the damage that they and others have done to the timeline might have to be their priority.

I'm so glad to have grabbed this series!  I needed something like this to get me out of my reading slump over the last few months.  It was exciting and complex but also sweet and a bit sad -- overall, a very satisfying story.

Satisfied with the present (for the present),
K


Support our site and buy The Time Quake from Amazon or find it at your local library.  We borrowed our copy from the library.

"It was late afternoon on December 30, the last Saturday of the Christmas holidays, and freezing fog had settled, shroudlike, over London."

Just over a month ago, I reviewed The Time Travelers (aka Gideon the Cutpurse), first in Linda Buckley-Archer's Gideon Trilogy.  I have just finished the second in the series, The Time Thief (aka The Tar Man), and I don't think I will be able to wait an entire month to read the third!  This book connects seamlessly to the first and continues with the same pleasing amount of history and adventure.

I am not going to go into any plot detail because this really is a continuation of the first story -- the plight of two twelve-year old children, Peter and Kate, who are mistakenly transported back to the eighteenth century after coming in contact with an anti-gravity experiment.  To even tell who ends up where at the beginning of this story gives away too much of the first book.  I think it is enough to say that this is an exciting series that doesn't lose anything through its extended length.

I am still enjoying how Buckley-Archer explores personal relationships in a meaningful way.  Also, this book felt a bit more grounded than the first one in terms of the characters' interactions with historical figures.  I was a bit worried when it seemed that the story could have been wrapped up after the second book but some unexpected last minute twists set up the third volume and I don't think I will be disappointed.

Sticking with our protagonists until the end,
K


Support our site and buy The Time Thief on Amazon or find it at your local library. We borrowed our copy from the library.

"It was early morning on Saturday, the sixteenth of December, the first day of the Christmas holidays."

Originally released as Gideon the Cutpurse, book one in Linda Buckley-Archer's Gideon Trilogy has been re-released as The Time Travelers.  Both titles are too simple to bring readers into this fascinating and complex book.  While I was reading it I couldn't help but think that it seemed like a version of Outlander for kids.

Peter Schock is a lonely twelve year old with a workaholic father and an absent mother.  When his father cancels his birthday celebration for the third time and sends him on a trip to a farm with his au pair, Peter's only words for his father are "I hate you".  Unfortunately, when Peter gets to the Dyer farm and sets off with scientist Dr. Dyer and his daughter Kate, something goes terribly wrong and Peter regrets those last words.  Peter and Kate are sent back to 1763 by an anti-gravity experiment gone awry.  They, of course, don't know this at first and are confused to find an empty valley where Kate's house normally sits.  They are also confused by the rogue in costume that calls himself the Tar Man and who steals the machine that traveled with them.  Luckily, their next encounter is with a much more friendly man -- the young Gideon Seymour -- a handsome man heading to a new position as manager of the Byng estate.  Gideon promises to help Peter and Kate return to their own time and they have many adventures that give them a good idea of life in eighteenth-century London.

Though the kids encounter too many historical figures in their short time in the past and too many characters are readily willing to believe their outrageous story, I became totally engaged in this book.  It is part mystery, part adventure and part history lesson.  It has complex characters and terrifying villains.  I can't wait to read the second in the series, The Time Thief, and will probably read it sooner than later to find out what comes next after the cliffhanger ending.

Appreciating modern traditions like bathing,
K


Support our site and buy The Time Travelers (a.k.a. Gideon the Cutpurse) on Amazon or find it at your local library. We borrowed our copy from the library.