Quest For The Secret Keeper (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
Ian Wigby is a Guardian, the “One”. The leader of a group of children, called the United, each with special abilities who are on a quest to find a number of prophecies in silver boxes hidden both in time and space by the Secret Keeper following the instructions of the Oracle of Delphi. Using portals to travel and a magical sundial to locate the lost objects, they retrieve the boxes. Each box has a prophecy with instructions on how to find the next box. If the United do not succeed, then the evil Demogorgon will destroy the world. When not on the quest the children usually reside in a Dover orphanage, however World War II has started and the children are being evacuated. Using a special stone that allows the wearer to understand and speak any language, Ian tries to protect one of his Headmistresses from German prisoners and ends up being thought a spy by the British army. Then Ian and his friends must try to locate and rescue a friend and her mother from Paris on the eve of the German invasion of the city. They dodge bombs and bullets and the German army in their rescue attempt. They are assisted by a Phoenician soldier who has traveled through a portal, an English Lord, one of their teachers and a Medal Master who is looking for her husband the Secret Keeper. Two evil sister demons are also seeking the Secret Keeper. It is nice to find a middle school story in which the children and adults share a cooperative, respectful and affectionate partnership. However, I found the children a little too perfect and that they acted older than their stated ages. This book is a quick moving read with a lot of action. It is science fiction, a quest story, an adventure story and a war story. As part of a series, it is necessary to have read the earlier books in the series for a full understanding of the complicated quest. Unfortunately, the final book in the series will not be published. This book does have a satisfactory ending so the reader does have a sense of completion. However, a reader would have liked to see the quest fulfilled. MontanaLibrary2GoGood news and bad news. The third book in the series, and I've noticed that the series seems to be written with the intent that readers grow with the characters. This was a relatively new idea when the Harry Potter series did it, the first book being written for an 11 year old audience and the successive books getting both more challenging and more adult as the characters grew older. In this third book of the Oracles of Delphi Keep the story deals with Nazis, war, senseless and tragic deaths, abuse, a number of things that are far more difficult than what was present in the first book. The young protagonists take on much more responsibility for themselves and their decisions than in previous books, and are more often on their own without guardians or schoolmasters. I read the first three-quarters of the book and had to set it aside for a couple of days, because Carl and Ian's reaction to Germans and Germany was hard to read. I know that it was realistic, for two young English boys living at that time who had already lost loved ones to the war (in front of their eyes, even), who had been bombed and shot at, who had lost their home, who were constantly surrounded by talk of the German war machine, the very idea of Germans was as The Enemy, as People to be Detested. The author did get that correct. But that doesn't make it easy to read. Knowing that young boys in those circumstances would not separate German civilians from the actions of their military does not make it easy to read Carl's atavistic hatred. Ian does acknowledge that he couldn't risk seeing the German boys as people, because he would stop thinking of them as the enemy, but it's later and it's brief. The action of the book was once again at a high pace, the plotlines are well woven and nothing seems to be dangling or forgotten. The prophecy in this case was much more obvious than in the earlier books, but the author actually had one of the characters remark on that, so it was clearly intentional. Much less Theo in this book, which makes sense. When you have a character who can see the future and gets warnings of danger and such, it's a bit difficult to create the right amount of dramatic tension without continuously making it about her knowledge of an impending event. Now for the bad news. On the author's website is this note: "Hey, my wonderful fans! So, I have some not so great news to share with fans of the Oracles' series...my publisher has decided not to move forward with a 4th and final book. I'm so, so sorry. I would like to thank everyone who supported the series - your kindness and generosity have been most appreciated, and I'm truly, truly grateful! :)"
What do You think about Quest For The Secret Keeper (2012)?
It was amazing, I can't believe that the 4th book isn't being published.
—sam
Love this series. Can't wait for book #4
—Timppa99
