The Wand & the Sea

April 15, 2015
Holly returns to the alternate realm that she can only reach from a holiday cottage. It's been a year since Midwesterner Holly first visited Anglielle during summer vacation in England (The Key and the Flame, 2013). Finally she's back at the cottage, impatient to reach the magical land where she plays an important role that she doesn't understand. As "the last Adept," Holly's "a being of great magical power"-power that she doesn't know how to wield. Anglielle has an evil king and sorcerer, back story, and an ample supply of fantastical creatures-from Ranulf the centaur to Aedan the salamander, a fire elemental who lives on Holly's shoulder and protects her. Holly also has a familiar, a black cat who speaks and is "forever loyal to her." Readers who nuzzle up to these wish-fulfillment animals will happily accept that Holly feels more at home in Anglielle than in suburban America and that she has a "special purpose." Readers craving solidity will be bored by Holly's lack of agency and a pervasive vagueness in the rules of magic (which tends to happen "somehow") and travel (ships sink into the forest floor to reach oceans). Dialect is overdone: "when the veil 'twixt the worlds is thinnest, we'll call her and she'll have ter come, innit?" A focus on water (as physical setting and magical element) isn't enough to wash away blurry worldbuilding and meandering length. Generic. (Fantasy. 8-12)

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June 1, 2015

Gr 4-7-Holly, her brother Ben, and neighbor Everett reunite in the sequel to The Key and the Flame (S. & S., 2013). The children met a year ago on holiday in England, discovering a portal into the magical country, Anglielle. They return there to continue Holly's magical training as an Adept and to rescue her loyal "rebel alliance" from evil King Reynard, but the rescue ends with everyone in the castle moat. They escape on Captain Morgan's enchanted ship, the Sea Witch, and set sail to locate Anglielle's missing Adepts. Sorcerer Raethius's attempts to steal Holly's powers derail the journey. Caterer's writing is stronger in this book. Holly and Everett express genuine regret and longing as they mend friendship fences. The story takes fewer detours, and the pace of the action is more dramatic. However, the story still lacks organic depth. Continuity problems take their toll on the work's integrity. The author details the female sailors then skips the men. Holly and Everett do have emotional revelations, but Caterer fails to develop them or continue the growth throughout the novel. Holly's companions leave her abruptly for hours on an island, later explaining that they had left her to "regroup," which hardly seems plausible given her perilous situation. Characters have personality quirks but not fully fleshed out backstories. Django Wexler's The Forbidden Library (Penguin, 2014) places a female character in similarly perilous and fantastical situation with more clearly delineated cause and effect. VERDICT Purchase only where the first title is popular.-Caitlin Augusta, Stratford Library Association, CT

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May 15, 2015
Grades 4-7 Holly and her family return to England for a second summer, and she and her younger brother, Ben, immediately enter into the world they discovered in The Key and the Flame (2013). With their local friend Everett, the children return to Anglielle, an alternative world in which Holly has the power of an Adept and where all three of them must deal with a variety of threats at the hands of creatures, rulers, and, in this episode, pirates. While readers may need to start at the beginning of the series for full engagement with Holly's adventures, Caterer's world building is consistent and lush.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)