Skip to main content

The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance

By



The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance
Candle Man: Book One
by Glenn Dakin
300 pages
juvenile fantasy
New York : Egmont USA, 2009

Theo lives an extremely secluded life. His guardian, the butler and the maid are the only three people Theo has ever known. He is kept within three rooms in the mansion. His only outside excursions are to the neighboring cemetery on his birthday. His guardian says he has a very rare and mysterious disease so keeping him isolated from the outside world is necessary for his own safety. As Theo grows older he begins to question this because he feels fine except for when he has his treatments in the Mercy Tube, then he feels horrible. One particular birthday he discovers a mysterious package with his name on it at the cemetery. This is only the beginning of a chain of strange events that change his life forever. As the mystery of his illness unfolds, Theo's world is turned upside-down and he has no idea who to trust.
An engaging new fantasy hero has arrived. Theo is an appealing, innocent young man who has been dealt a bad hand in life. I absolutely loved the beginning of this book, then things got a little iffy for me. The bad guys are rather a silly lot. They didn't quite mesh with me at first, but only for a short while. The characters never got less silly, but it worked into the story. In a way, the silliness kind of distracted the reader away from the violence that was going on as the story climaxed. Yes, there is violence, but it is not overly abundant or descriptive. Overall, an exciting story that will grab you. As usual, I am now annoyed I have to wait another year to read book two.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Faker

By
Faker By Gordon Korman New York: Scholastic Press, 2024. Fiction. 214 pages. 12-year-old Trey is used to starting over at a new school -- he has the routine perfectly memorized: make new friends, introduce his dad to the wealthy parents of his new friends, and "Houdini" themselves out of there before they get caught running their latest scam. Trey's dad is a master con artist, and Trey has just been promoted to full-partner. Their new scheme for the next big score brings them to the affluent suburb of Boxelder, TN where Trey's dad has cooked up a fake electric car company for investors to buy into. The only problem is that Trey is starting to grow tired of moving around and never putting down roots, especially after forming a fast friendship with Logan and developing a crush on Kaylee, a socially conscious girl in his class. As Trey longs for a normal life, is there any way he can convince his dad to get out of the family business? Gordon Korman is a perennial favorit...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Bletchley Riddle

By
  The Bletchley Riddle By Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin New York: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2024. Fiction. 392 pages. It's spring of 1940, Hitler has swept through most of Europe, and people believe England will be next. Half Polish-Jewish, half American Jakob has been recruited from Cambridge to Bletchley Park where they are working on deciphering the enigma machine. Jakob's sister Lizzie, meanwhile, is being forced to move from London to Cleveland to live with her grandmother after her mother disappeared in a 1939 attack in Poland. Lizzie manages to escape the keeper her grandmother sent for her to bring her to America and makes her way to Bletchley, where she's eventually given the task of delivering messages between departments. When secret messages begin appearing with Lizzie's belongings, she must decipher them to find the truth about her mother's past and location, while keeping the secrets away from the MI5 agent that seems a little t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dragon Run

By
Dragon Run by Patrick Matthews Scholastic, 2013.  336 pgs.  Fantasy      Al Pilgrommor is excited for Testing Day, when he will receive his rank, a tattooed number on the back of his neck, and a path forward to his future occupation and life.  He feels confident because his parents were fours on a scale of seven, but he is worried for his friend Wisp who doesn't have much of a chance of scoring above a two at best. But when Al is scored a zero, he not only has no prospects, he may lose his life as the dreaded Cullers are unleashed to kill him and his family to purify the land's bloodlines.  Al's world is ruled by dragons--the lords and supposed creators of humankind--so he thinks that even if he survives, he will have to make his living as a beggar or thief. But when Al sticks up for his Earther friend in front of Magister Ludi, he is drawn into the struggle of a secret organization hoping to destroy the Cullers, and perhaps the dragons them...
1 comment
Read more