A horse fantasy accessible to fans of the series who appreciate the video game it is based on.
Stakes are high as the Soul Riders try to protect their island in this third entry in the series.
Picking up where The Legend Awakens (2020) left off, Lisa, Alex, Linda, and Anne and their magical Starbreed horses have teleported back from the Secret Stone Circle where they released a magic threatening the nature of their island home, Jorvik. Their job is to protect the delicate balance of good and evil on the magical island as they fight to protect Winter Valley from flooding, fend off the evil forces of Garnok, save Lisa’s kidnapped father while steering clear of the Dark Riders, and try to help their mentor, Elizabeth, a Druid, who had been transformed into a will-o’-the-wisp by an evil witch. Like the video game the book is based on, the plot feels episodic and disjointed as it moves between Druid fantasy, science-fiction laboratory, and modern-day realism. Action happens quickly and in spurts, and the antagonists seem devoid of motivation. Still, Soul Riders fans could find satisfaction here, as the book integrates elements of the game, such as strong friendships, connection with horses, mysteries, and quests, into the storyline. It finishes with an open ending, leaving room for another installment. Earlier entries establish that most characters are White and Linda is a Pakistani immigrant.
A horse fantasy accessible to fans of the series who appreciate the video game it is based on. (map) (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5248-5971-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Entrancing and uplifting.
A small dog, the elderly woman who owns him, and a homeless girl come together to create a tale of serendipity.
Piper, almost 12, her parents, and her younger brother are at the bottom of a long slide toward homelessness. Finally in a family shelter, Piper finds that her newfound safety gives her the opportunity to reach out to someone who needs help even more. Jewel, mentally ill, lives in the park with her dog, Baby. Unwilling to leave her pet, and forbidden to enter the shelter with him, she struggles with the winter weather. Ree, also homeless and with a large dog, helps when she can, but after Jewel gets sick and is hospitalized, Baby’s taken to the animal shelter, and Ree can’t manage the complex issues alone. It’s Piper, using her best investigative skills, who figures out Jewel’s backstory. Still, she needs all the help of the shelter Firefly Girls troop that she joins to achieve her accomplishment: to raise enough money to provide Jewel and Baby with a secure, hopeful future and, maybe, with their kindness, to inspire a happier story for Ree. Told in the authentic alternating voices of loving child and loyal dog, this tale could easily slump into a syrupy melodrama, but Pyron lets her well-drawn characters earn their believable happy ending, step by challenging step, by reaching out and working together. Piper, her family, and Jewel present white; Pyron uses hair and naming convention, respectively, to cue Ree as black and Piper’s friend Gabriela as Latinx.
Entrancing and uplifting. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283922-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Thrills galore for gamers willing to go along for the ride.
A new virtual-reality theme park goes haywire on a crowd of young victims, er, visitors in Alexander’s latest screamfest.
Having scored one of just 100 coveted preview tickets to a cutting-edge, kids-only venue dubbed ESCAPE, budding amusement park fan and designer Cody Baxter is looking forward to a life-changing experience. What he gets is more of a life-threatening one, as games and rides with names like Triassic Terror and Haunted Hillside not only pit him against a monster and then zombies—or sometimes a monster and zombies—as well as ruthless competing players, but seem tailored to play on individual personal terrors. And, in some never explained way, the VR quickly turns into real battles that inflict real wounds even as the real settings shift with sudden, dizzying unpredictability. Teaming up with loyal new friends Jayson Torn and Inga Andersdottir, the former described as being Japanese and White and the latter as Norwegian, Cody (who seems to default to White) struggles for survival, learning ultimately that ESCAPE was created by an evil genius with an ulterior motive who is convinced that he can teach children a salutary lesson. The plot’s no more logical in its twists and contrivances than the premise, but the author’s knack for spinning out nightmarish situations is definitely on display here as the tale careens toward a properly lurid outcome.
Thrills galore for gamers willing to go along for the ride. (Light horror. 9-12)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-26047-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
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