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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

The Lost Girl, by Anne Ursu

The Lost Girl, by Anne Ursu (Walden Pond Press, Feb. 2019), is my favorite of all her books; anything about sisters appeals greatly, and when you throw in magic and girl power and vivid, detailed characterization, I am utterly sold!

Lark and Iris look identical, but they are very different people--Lark is a dreamer, and Iris is a rational organizer and doer.  They are used to using their strengths to help each other out, and they make a great team.  But when fifth grade is about to begin, they find to their horror that their parents and their school have decided they should be separated.  For the first time, they have to get through the school day without having each other right there, communicating surreptitiously and helping each other out.

That's not the only strange thing.  Something weird is happening--things are going missing.  And when Iris starts visiting a most peculiar antiques store that's just popped up, she finds herself entangled in the story of girl lost years ago, and her brother, the store's owner, who's determined to find her again.  No matter what it takes.  Even if it's dark magic....

So there are two entwined stories here--the sisters, forced to learn to stand on their own, and the magic that Iris stumbles into, and that all her desire for order can't control.  Both are good stories in their own right, and together they make for a wonderful reading experience.  I thought Lark would be my preferred sister, but Iris is the main pov character, and she grew on me lots during the book. The sisters relationship, with the stress they feel when kicked out of their co-dependent rut and the blossoming of their independence, is really well done, and perhaps stronger than the magical story, although that too was lovely.

A special shout-out to the "Awesome Girls" club at the local library that Iris is forced to attend (without Lark).  Iris is all prickly and hostile about it, but the other girls really are awesome in their own ways, and their girl power helps save the day when the confrontation with the villain is reached!





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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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