Chasing Danger by Sara Grant

This book is fast-paced from the start. The opening scene has fourteen-year-old Chase Armstrong shouting “Don’t leave me here.” Sara Grant then gives us a desolate setting.  We can be fooled into thinking the modern pirates mentioned in the blurb have arrived already. But not quite yet. When they do arrive, there’s more to them than the same blurb suggests.

Grant does well to maintain the tension and the pace. The situation with the pirates is bad enough but Chase also has to contend with a mysterious background. Who exactly was her mother? Will Ariadne even be a true grandmother?

Both the emotional and the action stakes are high. Grant maintains a firm narrative balance which achieves fast pace and emotional closeness at the same time. Her characters are extremely clearly drawn. This is also a real page turner. Nicely short chapters also add to the attractiveness. It’s so easy to read just one more chapter.

Who is the book for?  Well, Chase is fourteen, so presumably twelve-year-olds would like to read about her. Later primary, early secondary? Chase feels a little more mature than the Famous Five or characters from the Nancy Drew mysteries. Yet the adventure is similar and at the same time of a higher concept than these. The cover firmly suggests Chase is a teenager who cares about her appearance.    

No matter. I’m a lot older than any of them and I’m looking forward to the next one.        

  

Something Invisible by Siobhán Parkinson

At 182 pages this is a respectable length for a teen / late middle grade book. Yet I read it extremely quickly. I started yesterday morning and I it finished this morning. It just carried me along.

Jake is a pleasant enough young man but falters a little when his baby sister arrives. She is the daughter of his biological mother and the man he calls dad. Sally from round the corner and her elderly next-door neighbour befriend him and give him food for thought. Then some other things happen but I won’t tell you what because I don’t want to spoil it for you.  

Why did it hold me so much?

The chapters are just the right length. Some of them are very short. Some of them are longer but none are too long. All, actually, are just exactly as long as they need to be. Jake’s voice is just right. He’s a great character, anyway, as is Sally, and Mrs Kennedy – the old lady-with-arthritis from next-door. Other adults and children hover in the background but they are no less real or rounded. The adults are clumsy, as is often the case in books written for this age group, yet we can’t help but forgive them. Siobhán Parkinson treats them kindly.

A lovely read indeed.       

             

Powder Monkey

By Paul Dowswell 

ISBN 9780747577218

Bloomsbury

I’m not usually attracted to boys’ adventure stories which is what the cover suggests this book is. However, I’d already read Paul Dowswell’s Ausländer and found it extremely useful for my Holocaust project as well as being very well written. Also, having lived for thirty years near Portsmouth I’ve developed a fascination for Nelson’s ship, the Victory. So, in the end, I couldn’t resist picking up Powder Monkey off the library shelf.

I wasn’t disappointed. Powder Monkey is also beautifully written. Main character Sam is totally convincing. We start to care about him just a few lines in. The story is told in Sam’s voice. We are right there with him all the way. There is also plenty of camaraderie amongst the men on the Miranda and in some ways the story is quite gentle. Yet there are plenty of spills and thrills and at any one point we are not sure what is going to happen next. And there are enough darker characters to bring  sufficient tension in.

I imagine this novel could appeal to a wide readership. It would be suitable for mature children at the end of primary school, ye there is enough adventure, blood and gore to suit older boys. Older girls may well fall in love with Sam or some of his friends and there is a hint of a love interest. There is enough fast-paced adventure for everyone.  

It is clear that Dowswell has been thorough in his research. Yet he does not overwhelm us with his knowledge. He simply creates a thoroughly believable world.    

Time Breaking by Barbara Spencer

ISBN 978 1848767 331   

Troubador  

This is a self-published book I was asked to review for Troubadour. I make no apology for including it here. It took me into that reader zone, where the inner critic shuts up, much more effectively than many mainstream published books do. It is the story of Molly who accidentally slips into the 17^th century and becomes Molly Hampton. It is a well-executed time-slip novel.

Barbara Spencer keeps the temporal logistics well in check. I’d go as far as saying time works here even better than it does in Dr Who or Tom’s Midnight Garden. Molly in both of her worlds is convincing and likeable. She does not have a particularly easy ride either in the 21^st or 17^th centuries. She is exactly right for her young adult readers: she is like a young adult, the story is left a little open-ended, there is a darker side to both settings and the story is a typical young adult Bildungsroman where the protagonist struggles to come to terms with who she really is.  

A strong love interest, some explicit abuse and a complex emotional background, in both worlds, make this novel suitable for older teens and young adults. Troubador’s RRP price of £7.99 is perfectly reasonable. The book is nicely printed. The cover is appealing and suits the story well. 

                  

The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner

ISBN 978 1 84255 634 4  

Orion

This is pacey story with a good deal of magic in it. It takes place in France and England at the time of the French revolution. It is very different from Dickens’ story with the seam setting but the book nevertheless reminds me of Dickens: The Marquis de Villeduval is just like one of his middle-weight characters - someone who is important to the plot yet not really the owner of the story. In Dickens, these characters seem to be almost a caricature. So is the marquis. Count Kalliovski is pure evil. His character brings much of the tension into the story. All of this helped me to like the book.

What made me love it, though, were the characters of the main players. One cannot help but love Yann, Têtu, his friend and mentor, and Sido. They are warm-blooded, rounded and very believable characters. The story comes out of the problems that they face. There is magic, but it is not used to create easy solutions.   

This novel keeps the reader intrigued. The plot twists and turns and keeps us guessing. The love interest makes it appeal to teens. It balances adventure and romance well.