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...
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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