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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...
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The Secret

The Secret

Secret in the Stone (The Unicorn Quest 2), by Kamilla Benko

Secret in the Stone is the second book in the Unicorn Quest series by Kamilla Benko (Bloomsbury Feb. 29, 2019). It continues the adventures of two sisters, Claire and Sophie, in the magical land of Arden that they'd entered (in good portal fantasy fashion) by climbing up one of the chimneys of their great-aunt's home.

Arden is a place full of magic, with different guilds each with their own domain of power.  Claire had discovered in the first book that she has Gemmer magic (an affinity with all things stone).  Sophie has yet to manifest any talent. But though Arden still has lots of magic, it's diminished since the unicorns were massacred by an evil queen years ago.   Meeting a unicorn toward the end of book one has given Claire hope that she can find out how to restore unicorns and their magic to Arden, keeping it from falling into civil war.  She and Sophie are possibly the last descendants of Arden's royal family, and if anyone can  wake the unicorns again, it is them.  Sophie is more doubtful.

But their path is complicated by a faction of Royalists, who want to bring the queen who killed the unicorns back (the story many people believe paints the queen in a much more positive light).  And so Claire and Sophie find themselves pawns in a larger game of conspiracies, secrets, and lies, complicated by the rising tensions between the various guilds of magic, and complicated as well when friends require rescuing from mortal peril.  On top of that, there's growing tension between the sisters--Claire's faith in unicorn restoration is not matched by Sophie, who's struggling with her complicated feelings about not having magic of her own.

The dangers mount as the book reaches its end, which comes with many new exciting surprises that will leave readers eagerly awaiting the next book!

It's a very satisfying middle grade fantasy--all the elements that one expects are there, with the interesting addition of explicit tension between the sisters--they love each other, but are frustrated with each other at the same time, and it's complicated by the fact that Sophie was dangerously ill in the real world.   So it's as solid a choice as you can get for offering to the young reader who loves unicorns (though they are actually not physically present in this book), the possibility of other worlds where ordinary kids can become magical, and stories of sisters!  

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

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Dead Voices, by Katherine Arden

Dead Voices , by Katherine Arden (middle grade, G.P. Putnam's Sons, August 2019), is a delightfully spooky sequel to Small Spaces , perfect for a chilling read as winter draws closer! Ollie, Coco, and Brian became close friends under somewhat trying circumstances last fall--the evil Smiling Man trying to turn them into scarecrows--and now winter has come, they're on their way to a fun weekend at a new ski lodge with Ollie's dad and Coco's mom.  They almost don't make it through the intense snowstorm, and when they arrive, they find themselves the only visitors.  The snow keeps falling, trapping them inside, and the power goes out.  And there are ghosts. The day after they arrive another visiter makes it through the snow, a young reporter for a ghost hunting magazine.  The owners of the hotel aren't sure that publicity about the hotel's previous incarnation of an orphanage with a dark, sad, history is what they want, but the young man is keen to get ghost hun...
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Premeditated

I'm going to start with the blurb from the back cover of this book, because it does a remarkable job of introducing the story in very few words: A week ago, Dinah’s cousin Claire cut her wrists. Five days ago, Dinah found Claire’s diary and discovered why. Three days ago, Dinah stopped crying and came up with a plan. Two days ago, she ditched her piercings and bleached the black dye from her hair. Yesterday, knee socks and uniform plaid became a predator’s camouflage. Today, she’ll find the boy who broke Claire. By tomorrow, he’ll wish he were dead. Claire and Dinah are cousins who are incredibly close, close enough that when Claire ends up in a coma in the hospital from a failed suicide attempt, Dinah knows where to look to find Claire's diary (or the computerized version of one, anyway). Dinah figures out what drove Claire to the point of suicide--a boy from the private school that Claire was supposed to attend that fall. Dinah enrolls at the school herself, determined to get...
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Storm

By: D.J. MacHale This is the sequel to SYLO where a small island off the coast of Maine was invaded by the US Navy (the US navy is called SYLO).  The main characters, Tucker, Kent, Olivia, and Tori escaped from Pemberwick and got to Portland, Maine.  In Storm they pick up another character, Jon, a doctor from a Portland hospital.  As it turns out the US Navy is at war with the US Airforce.  Over three fourths of the worlds population is dead.  Tucker, Tori, Kent, Olivia, and, Jon are trying to get to Nevada where a radio signal they picked up said to come if they wanted to fight back.  There is a lot of action and the plot moves along at a good pace.  One thing that was different from the first book was how much you found out about their relationships.  Kent is with Olivia and Tucker is with Tori.  It sort of bothered me that they were so into who was with who when they were trying to figure out why most of the world's population was killed. ...
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