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Geeks and the Holy Grail (Camelot Code #2), by Mari Mancusi, for Timeslip Tuesday

The first book in the Camelot Code series, The Once and Future Geek , mixed time travel between the medieval world of King Arthur and our own, and it is a very entertaining book.  The second book in the series, Geeks and Holy Grail (Hyperion, October 2019), is also entertaining (though not quite as funny; King Arthur as a modern day high school student is hard to beat....). When Morgana, sworn enemy of King Arthur, attacks the druids of Avalon, Nimue, the youngest of them, takes the Holy Grail and runs with it.  King Arthur is dying, and only the Grail can save him.  Desperate to keep it from falling into Morgana's hands, she stumbles into Merlin's Crystal Cave.  But instead of Merlin there to help her (he's on vacation in Los Vegas, in our time), there's only his very inexperienced apprentice, Emrys.  His attempt to hide the grail works, in a sense--as a small, flatulent dragon, it sure doesn't look much like a grail.  But it isn't much use to Arthur as a...

The Secret

Nobody

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The premise of this book is an interesting one.  It starts with the idea that when humans interact, they exchange energy that leave impressions on other people.  However, there are some people who do not exchange energy properly.  Nobodies cannot affect other people and Nulls cannot be affected.  Nix is a Nobody.  He has been raised by a secret society and is sent to kill people because who can get away with it better than someone no one can notice, and if they do happen to see him, they will certainly not remember him.  In general, he is sent to kill Nulls, who, because they cannot be affected by other people, are heartless sociopaths.
Claire is a girl who has gone her whole life without being noticed and she does not understand it.  She seems pretty close to depression at the beginning when she allows herself her two minute annual wallowing session as she looks through her yearbook and the general, meaningless comments left to her.  She is used to no one caring about her.  Her parents have forgotten her so many times that they have note stuck to their car that says CLAIRE so they can check if they have her before they leave.  Eventually, someone finally notices her.  Unfortunately, that someone is pointing a gun at her because she is Nix's next assignment.
There is instant reaction between the two.  As two Nobodies (and I don't feel as though I'm giving anything away here because it was pretty obvious what was going on), they have the ability to notice each other.  Nix is unable to kill her and ends up feeling oddly protective.  He has never been noticed before, even by the Society.  He had been resigned to his fate, but Claire opens up an entirely new set of feelings for him.
As I said, the concept is interesting, but I found it a little inconsistent.  Even if they do not exchange energy with people, they should still be noticed, and they are noticed sometimes, usually when it helps the plot a bit.  People will not remember reading an article about a Nobody, but if it had been an article about someone with the same name as a Nobody, they would remember that.  Also, there is this cabin in the middle of the woods, and it never explains how it got there.  The plot was a bit dull, and Claire learned a new skill set way too fast, even given the excuses in the book.  The end was also a bit anticlimactic, and they did not really end up accomplishing anything.
Overall, the book was a 2.4.  It was like the unsalted Cape Cod potato chips.  They're alright and there is nothing particularly special about them, but there is something that makes you keep eating them.  There was something in the book, and I do not know what it was, that made it very compelling.  It was difficult to stop reading it.

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Order of the Majestic, by Matt Myklusch

Order of the Majestic , by Matt Myklusch (middle grade, Aladdin, May 7 2019), is one to offer kids dreaming of magic, and hoping it will find them one day. 12-year-old Joey Kopecky wasn't one of those kids.  He was content flying under the radar, living an unambitious life of computer gaming in New Jersey, when his life was upended by perfect standardized test scores.  Now he's been offered a place at one of the most exclusive schools in the country, where every kid is a genius.  He feels like a fraud--knowing how to take tests is a skill, certainty , but is it really a hallmark of genius? But one final test, a strange one involving 150 magic tricks to solve, leads to a 151st trick that transports him to the ghostly shell of a once grand magical theater, the Majestic.  It's fallen into ruins, and to get inside Jack must pass through spooky wraiths, but once he makes it, he finds the magician who once made it famous, the Great Rodondo.  Rodondo was once the leade...

this week's round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy from around the blogs (7/14/19)

Here's what I found this week; please let me know of anything I missed! The Reviews And All Between (Green Sky #3), by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, at Say What? The Book of Dust, by Philip Pullman, at Girl With Her Head in a Book Brightstorm, by Vashti Hardy, at Charlotte's Library Changling (the Oddmire #1), by William Ritter, at Metalphantasmreads , Storythreads , and Bookworm for Kids The Haunting of Henry Davis, by Kathryn Siebel, at From My Bookshelf The House with Chicken Legs, by Sophie Anderson, at Arkham Reviews The Longest Night of Charlie Moon, by Christopher Edge, at Middle Grade Mafia The Lost Tide Warriors, by Catherine Doyle, at Book Craic  The Magic Bed-Knob, by Mary Norton, at Fantasy Literature Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow, by Jessica Townsend, at Heather's Reading Hideaway The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson, at Read Till Dawn Serafina and the Seven Stars, by Robert Beatty, at the B and N Kids Blog Ship Rats: A Tale of Heroism on the High Seas, by R...

The Shores Beyond Time, by Kevin Emerson

The Shores Beyond Time , by Kevin Emerson, is the third book in the Chronicle of the Dark Star series that began with Last Day on Mars , and continued in The Oceans Between Stars (links to my reviews).   Basically the premise is humanity, and an alien race with whom humanity is at war, are out among the stars after our sun went nova (and some other stars have too), both races looking for new homes (the aliens because humanity decided the Telphon's planet would be a great new home, and essentially nuked it, so there are only about three hundred of them left).  One human boy, Liam, and one Telphon girl, who goes by Phoebe, became friends on Mars and Liam met an ancient time travelling alien of a different species (as told in the first book) and were both separated from their people on a long lonely space flight, and Liam started travelling in time himself (the second book). In this third book, Liam and Phoebe find themselves at the heart of the mystery of the supernovas and the...

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