RISE OF THE SHADOW

Siblings are thrown into a dangerous magical world.

Alex, 10, and Emma, 13, live with their cruel antiques-dealer uncle in a house with 252 rooms, 17 Victrolas (Alex calls them “hundred-year-old record players”), and no connection with the modern outside world. Their parents died on an archaeological dig (Alex believes this, but Emma does not), searching for an artifact that would restore magic to a world called the Conjurian. Their quest was pressing because nowadays, “Magic is dying” there. One night, horrifying creatures burst into the mansion and chase the siblings into a secret passage and out into that other realm. Monsters and smugglers loom; the head of this land’s ruling circle might be defending the realm from evil—or might be creating illusions of evil to gain more power. Within this adventurous setup, prose is clunky and pacing drags. Even the cliffhanger ending, with one sibling under a collapsed building and the other underwater unable to swim, lights no spark—readers know by then that this story’s flashy dangers resolve quickly without substance. An ongoing sibling debate on whether magic exists—even as magic unfolds before their eyes—is preposterous. In a threadbare, distasteful trope, Anderson repeatedly uses facial disfigurement—including eyelessness—to symbolize evil. Moreover, for no apparent reason besides traditional gender roles, both Alex’s parents and the text itself explicitly place younger brother Alex as superior to older sister Emma. Alex, Emma, and most characters seem white by default.

Flimsy, forced, and stale.