Author: Will Peterson
Amazon Link
Publication: May 2008
Copy owned: Advanced Reading copy
My opinion: 2/5
Product Details:
- Reading level: Ages 9-12
- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Candlewick (May 27, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0763639710
- ISBN-13: 978-0763639716
Product Description:
A sense of foreboding sets in the moment fourteen-year-old twins Rachel and Adam arrive from New York to visit their English grandmother. The station is empty, village streets are deserted, locals are hostile, and even their frail Granny Root is oddly distant. And what about the bees that appear to follow a mysterious force? It all seems tied up with the Triskellion — an intertwining symbol etched in chalk on the moors. With a growing sense of danger and white-knuckle suspense, the twins are compelled to unearth a secret that has protected the village for centuries, one that reveals a shocking truth about their ancestors — and themselves.
My review: This is one of those books that is written in that well-written British style, with great vocabulary and wonderful descriptions of scenes, places and people. When I read the description of this book, I was a bit hesitant, because usually when a story says it contains "a deep dark village secret" that usually means it is a lottery story - and I hate lottery stories. I absolutely refuse to watch or read them (a lottery story is when the village holds a lottery to either stone a person, kill a person, cast a person out, or eat a person to preserve the good will of the gods) and you will see this theme every now and then when someone has run out of good storylines. Thankfully, this is not a lottery story. However, throughout the entire book, I could not guess the mystery, and days after finishing the book, after contemplating it some more, I still can not figure out the mystery. This book leaves me flabbergasted. Its really good, but its overall question of "why" is never really answered, at least not to my satisfaction. I don't understand the overall point/theme to this book. Its explained in a rudimentary way, but not in a obvious "end of the book" here is the solution to the mystery kind of way. I don't know, I just know that I was a bit frustrated at the end, which is a real shame because it really is a good story, I just didn't understand why it all happened in the first place. It just needs a clearer ending.
