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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

Returning to Shore

by Corinne Demas


     This is a story about a girl whose mother just got married for the third time, so she is sent to spend the summer with her father while her mother is on her honeymoon.  Her father lives on a small island along Cape Cod and is determined to save a local species of turtles.  Although at first Clare is hesitant and slightly uncomfortable around her father, who she hasn’t seen since she was very small, they grow to like each other by the end.
     Though not particularly fast paced, Clare manages to have enough activity to keep the reader engaged.  It’s a fairly short book, so I didn’t really expect much to happen.  Clare herself is a pretty realistic character.  Her emotions and reactions were fleshed out and they were what I would expect a girl in her situation to feel.  The other characters, however, were lacking.  They were there more for Clare to react to and seemed very flat and more like names floating around the page than actual people.  Even the father, who was a major part of Clare’s internal development, left a lot to be desired.  I wish the book had been a little longer and the other characters and their relationships with Clare had been developed more.  It would have made the book much more poignant, but instead, it was more of a flat read.
     The back cover description hints at a lot more development than was actually in the book.  There was a bunch of personal development for Clare, but the other subplots - the memory lane, her father being the town crazy - hinted at on the back cover are more like caricatures of what’s in the book.  The cover is also more bleak than the story deserves.  It’s serene, but not depressingly so like the cover indicates.  Imagine a blue sky and the girl looking towards the horizon instead of towards the ground.
     It is a 2.85.  It’s not something I would devour, and not something I would reread (though some might, depending on the type of book you like), but it was nice in a quiet, serene sort of way, and I think that some of Clare’s realizations were done really skillfully.  It is a piece of cheese.  Something to be eaten slowly in a relaxed way, but also something that is over pretty quickly.  It is soft, and it’s not a sharp tasting sort of cheese, but a mellow one that you enjoy while it’s there and appreciate what it gives you even though it’s not very filling.

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This week's round-up of middle grade science fiction and fantasy from around the blogs (10/13/19)

Here's what I found in my blog reading this week; please let me know if I missed your post! The Reviews The Bootlace Magician (Cicus Mirandus #2), by Cassie Beasley, at Randomly Reading The Boy Who Was Fire, by Marcus Kahle McCann, at The Children's Book Review City of Bones, by Victoria Schwab, at Pages Unbound The Dark Lord Clementine, by Sarah Jean Howitz, at Sally's Bookshelf Dead Voices, by Katherine Arden, at Charlotte's Library Dragon Pearl, by Yoon Ha Lee, at Imaginary Friends The Dragon Warrior, by Katie Zhao, at Log Cabin Library , Forever and Everly , and Lost In Storyland Ember: the Secret Book, by Jamie Smart, at Mr Ripleys Enchanted Books The Hippo at the End of the Hall, by Helen Cooper, at Charlotte's Library Homerooms and Hall Passes, by Tom O'Donnell, at Ms. Yingling Reads The International Yeti Collective, by Paul Mason, at Book Craic The Little Broomstick, by Mary Stewart, at Fantasy Literature Mightier than the Sword, by Drew Callander and ...

Stolen Time, by Danielle Rollins, for Timeslip Tuesday

If you are in the mood for a real page turner of a YA time travel story (it only took me two and a bit hours to read 400 pages), with lots of twists, lots of great characters, and lots of action, look no further than Stolen Time, by Danielle Rollins (Febraury 2019, HarperTeen). It begins in Seattle, in 1913, when Dorothy runs away from the marriage her con-artist mother has inveigled her into.  Her flight leads her to a time traveler, from New Seattle, 2077.  Ash is on a mission to find his mentor, the professor who figured out time travel technology, and who disappeared. leaving his team of young people gathered from different times without guidance and purpose.  Dorothy stows away in his ship, and Ash inadvertently takes her back to his own time, to a city devastated by earthquakes and inundated by tidal waves. It's a city living in fear of a vicious gang, whose co-leader, Roman, was once one of the professor's brightest students.  But Roman wanted time travel to ...

The Clockwork Scarab

By: Coleen Gleason Two girls are dead and one has gone missing in 1889 London.  The only clues are an Egyptian Scarabs that were found at both the murder scenes. Well, not exactly murder, both deaths were made out to look like suicides.  Mina Holmes, as in Sherlock Holmes's niece, and Evaline Stoker, sister of Bram Stoker (author of Dracula), are called to a secret meeting at the British Museum by Irene Adler.  Stoker and Holmes are called to investigate these series of murders by the Princess of Wales.  Along the way Holmes makes friends with Dylan Eckhert.  Dylan was at the museum looking at the statue of Sekhmet,  and Egyptian  Goddess, when he touched a scarab on the statue.  Next thing he knew, he woke up in 1889 London.  His problems come from the fact that he's from 2016 London.  Miss Holmes also has a rivalry with Lieutenant Grayling, of Scotland Yard.  Miss Stoker runs into a mysterious pick-pocket, Pix (meaning Pixie), a c...

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