SERVANT

An American kid travels back in time to an ancient society while his family fruitlessly searches for him in Halbert’s historical fantasy adventure.

It’s 2010, and the Keane family—mom Lyana, historian dad Ian, snarky teen daughter Ariel, and son Zach, a neurodivergent boy who obsessively counts things—are ensconced in a spooky old Tudor house in Littleton, Massachusetts. One night, Zach starts climbing the staircase and somehow ends up in an ancient society, where he befriends Akolo, a young boy brought to the city by the king after his village was raided. The king also brought back a chest. The two boys have ouroboros-shaped amulets that glow prettily near the chest, and the voice of God duly pronounces them “servants.” (Zach also miraculously gains the ability to speak the native language.) The king wants Zach and Akolo to harness the chest’s power for him, and is delighted when Zach figures out that objects placed beside the chest during a lunar eclipse—a blood moon—become imbued with divine mojo. Meanwhile, as months go by, the distraught Keanes refuse to entertain the likelihood that Zach is dead. Ian pursues seemingly unhinged theories regarding his disappearance while Lyana perceives whispering voices and unsettling visions of a blood-drenched girl. Their suspicions fall upon Marshall, the house’s informal caretaker, who lives in a cabin filled with rare ancient books and has an ouroboros tattoo; their misgivings heighten when Ariel discovers a photograph of him from the 1800s. Zach is working from his end to find a way back to the 21st century before the king takes him and Akolo back to Akolo’s village to help rebuild the temple, which will sever Zach’s access to the time-travel portal.

In this second installment of their Goodpasture Chronicles series, husband-and-wife authors Jason and Rhonda Halbert (writing under the pen name R.J. Halbert) create a richly textured portrait of an ancient society. Zach adroitly navigates palace intrigues, the king’s despotic whims, and the potentially fatal chest, portrayed by the Halberts in punchy, mordant prose. (“The sound was a muffled scream, as if the man was being strangled,” they write of a soldier forced to approach the chest as an experiment. “Akolo leaned forward to get a better look, then wished he hadn’t when he saw the man’s face—it was white as a tunic and frozen in fear. This man was dead.”) The contemporary branch of the narrative is a tense study of a family disintegrating under pressure, then struggling to regroup, written in evocative prose that strips bare the characters’ weaknesses and comforting delusions. (“Some of his best academic insights had come with a glass in his hand, the whiskey warming his thoughts until patterns emerged from chaos,” Ian tells himself as he hits the bottle. “Just one, he rationalized, already rising from his chair. Just enough to think clearly. For Zach.”) The result is a page turner with real literary depth.

An entertaining occult thriller that mixes captivating magic with bracing psychological realism.