Week 38: The Golden Spiral

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The Golden Spiral and The Forgotten Locket, by Lisa Mangum

The second book in the Hourglass Door trilogy delivered pretty well. Abby is a decent heroine with plenty of courage and problem-solving creativity, though her specialness is still unexplained. The writing is good, if sometimes overly descriptive (not a terrible thing for a YA novel, actually). I got right to work on the third book, so I suppose that says something. The Golden Spiral won 2010 Book of the Year for Young Adult Fiction in the independent publishing category; evidently the ALA liked it.

The Forgotten Locket is the final book, and it too was pretty good. Things get so badly messed up that you really wonder how they're going to get straightened out again. Abby and Dante are shown as equal partners of a team, which is nice when you compare it to many typical YA romances.

I would give these books to my daughter to read now, if she was at all interested in romantic stories yet. If you have a pre-teen daughter that wants to read YA romance, this is one you can give her.

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