In The Lighthouse Between Worlds, Griffin lives with his dad, who’s a lighthouse keeper on the Oregon coast. Homeschooled, he’s following in his father’s footsteps, learning to be a glassblower. They share the same quiet days and the same quiet grief, ever since Griffin’s mom died. But then an alarm shatters the quiet, and nothing can be the same again. Because the glass lens in the lighthouse is a portal, linking their world to several others. Cavern of Secrets is the second installment in the Wing & Claw trilogy. My review is spoiler-free: “Winter’s passed and Raffa is back. Little more can be said. It’s the middle book, so it does middle book things.” There you have it. And then there’s The Secret of Dreadwillow Carse. A princess who must preserve her people’s happiness and a girl who understands sadness team up to discover the secret of Dreadwillow Carse. This one has the feel of an allegory to it, and it wasn’t to my tastes. Too much of a downward spiral to the discoveries.

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In 80 Days or Die, close on the heels of Bk1, Max (and his cousin Alex) search for the ingredients of a medicine that could save the life of a friend. But in order to do so, they’ll have to recreate the journey that inspired their ancestor Jules Verne’s famous story, Around the World in Eighty Days. It’s not just a race against time. It’s a race against rivals. The 100-Year-Old Secret introduces Americans Xena and Xander Holmes, descendants of Sherlock Holmes, who tackle one of the great detective’s unsolved cases while visiting England. (I’d say it’s geared for lower middle grade readers.) And Snapdragon is a graphic novel about a girl who meets the town which, who can’t really be a witch. Probably.

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Herbert is the Lost and Founder at a big hotel in a seaside town that’s lovely in summertime. But in winter, the locals of Eerie-on-Sea trade tales of their very own cryptid. But when a girl who was apparently once turned in as a lost item at Herbert’s office returns to find out the truth of her past, strange things begin happening all over town. And the Malamander is at the heart of the mystery. The Abduction picks up right where the first book in the Theodore Boone series left off. Thanks to regular references to what’s come before, I’d recommend reading this series in order. Fire the Depths kicks off the Max Tilt trilogy. Young Max is a descendant of Jules Verne, and he uses clues from the attic & from Verne’s books in order to chase down a treasure that could save his family from financial ruin. Turns out, there was some fact to the fiction.

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