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...
There is no house magic. There are only rules made to try to placate an angry, physically and verbally abusive father, a mother trying to pretend that everything can be just fine, and the two sisters, increasingly unable to cope as the "house magic" fails.
There is real magic, though, and it's found it's way into Eleanor and Mike's home. Their hiding place under Eleanor's bed becomes a river, and when they plunge into the water, they are in a another world. The Riverland is not a safe place either, though; it's no happy fairyland. It's a place under attack from the snake-headed woman leading the nightmares that spawn there in an effort to break into our world, and the cracks between the worlds are growing.
The sisters learn that their family had helped the Riverland stay balanced in the past, but for Eleanor, the burden of trying to help, without knowing what she can do about anything, is too much, and she and Mike retreat back to the real world. It's only until the rivers, and the nightmares, have almost broken through that she is able to help. But what help is there for her own family?
The story is strongest when it tells of the real world; the portrayal of Eleanor and Mike's circumstances is heartbreaking and believable. In particular, Eleanor's growing fear that she might, in her own anger, be following in her father's footsteps is powerful and moving. Happily, though the girls keep the rule about not talking about their family to anyone outside it, help does come as their grandmother becomes part of their lives. I loved the details of the real world--the glass project that Eleanor and Pendra work on, for instance, is now my favorite fictional science project ever (it is both delightful sciency and delightfully metaphory!).
The fantasy element took some time for me to accept it. The Riverland is not well explained. The reader just to accept the strangely fabricated guardian birds fighting back the nightmares, the antagonist snake woman, and the stranded travelers from our world who, in armored carapaces, work to repair the breaks and keep the nightmares contained, without having the logic of it spelled out. It's more dreamlike than I myself tend to like, more an allegory than a self-contained alternate reality. Possibly I wasn't as engaged with it as I'd have liked is because the visits the girls make there don't last very long; possibly if I hadn't been so much more interested in the real world story I've had read the fantasy part more slowly and carefully, and gotten more out of it. That being said, at the end of the sisters' last journey, the Riverland comes together with their real world story beautifully, giving them catharsis, acceptance of their story, and the possibility of making a new one for themselves.
Sort answer--though not a personal favorite for me in particular (I just couldn't suspend my disbelief quite enough for the Riverland part), it sure is memorable and powerful. Though perhaps not one you'd immediately think to give kids wanting unicorns and rainbow escapism, it's one to give them anyway.
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