Which door would you go through to save the world?
David, Xander, and Toria King never know what new adventures–and dangers–await them beyond the mysterious portals hidden on the top floor of their new house. They have battled gladiators and the German army, dodged soldiers on both sides of the Civil War, and barely escaped a fierce attack in their own home.
Still they are no closer to finding their mother, who was pulled by powerful forces through a portal and lost in time.
Their only hope is to turn the tables on Taksidian, the menacing stranger who wants them out of the house so he can use it for his own twisted purposes.
But everything changes when a trip into the near future reveals the devastating outcome of Taksidian’s schemes–a destroyed city filled with mutant creatures. It is only then that the Kings realize what they’re really fighting for–the fate of humanity itself.
Series: Dreamhouse Kings (Book 4)
Genre: Middle-Grade Fantasy
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (November 29, 2010)
Page Count: 323 pages
I want to see this series to the end, and the books aren’t expensive, so I’m continuing reading through this series. I honestly feel like it could have been condensed into fewer books because the plot feels a little stretched out, but that’s just my opinion.
The Plot
The book starts up right where the last one left as the family are battered in their mission to save Mom and stop the dire future. It sounds bad but I honestly felt like nothing much happened throughout this entire book. There were some intense sequences, but I didn’t feel like they moved things forward. They were just stuff for the characters to do. Most of the book was them figuring out how to defend themselves but it still kinda lagged.
The Characters
The best part of these books is definitely the characters. They seem like really people in the ways they talk and act with very natural dialogue and emotions. The King family is very sweet and Toria is such a brave darling. A very human moment was the two brothers talking to each other in the bathroom while one took a shower. I’ve never seen that in a book but I totally did that with friends, sisters, and cousins as a kid. Sometimes I didn’t want to wait until they got out so I sat on the toilet while they bathed behind the curtain. It took me back to childhood.
The Setting
Most of the book takes place in the mysterious house full of portals, but in some scenes the boys traveled to the sinking Titanic or even a village being raided by Vikings, featuring a Viking berserker.
The Theme
Keal talks about how he would do things to save a life even if it means consequences. I feel like he’s really touching on how some people are more concerned about saving their own skin than doing the morally right thing.
“Then I’d save the life and face the consequences of my actions. But no everyone thinks that way.”
“There are people who’d let the person die?”
“If saving him meant breaking rules or hurting someone, yeah.”
Epic Things
I liked all of Xander’s pop culture references.
Content Cautions
The only concern is the violence. Takisidian takes Jesse’s severed finger, there are lots of dead bodies in the portal worlds, a good bit of blood on the berserker, a room of bones, and a gross monument of severed body parts.
What We Can Learn For Our Writing
The Power of Smells – At one point Jesse (Xander and David’s great uncle) has his finger chopped off (long story) but David describes the scent of the wound being like raw hamburger. This gave such a vivid image in my head like it snapped me into the scene.
How this applies to our writing – Smells trigger our memories. Have you ever smelled a perfume and thought of your grandmother or a certain laundry detergent took you back to your aunt’s house in your mind? Or for me I once got a whiff of cigarettes and strong cologne and instantly was taken back to my grandpas house. When I think of my Miami grandparents I think of the smells of overripe fruit, sweat, petrichor, and lizards. These may be odd or even repulsive smells for some but they take me to a place. You can do the same by making sure to describe smells in your stories. What does the orchard, the office building, the post-apocalyptic graveyard smell like?
Conclusion
This wasn’t a bad book. It just wasn’t my favorite. I feel like the important scenes could have been tacked on to either the previous book or the next book and been more effective.
I’ve been writing since before I could drive. Short stories, investigative exposes celebrity profiles, editorials, business columns, radio dramas, screenplays–you name it. For the last few years, I’ve focused on novels. I’m the author of the thrillers “Comes a Horseman,” “Germ,” “Deadfall,” “Deadlock,” “The 13th Tribe,” and the young adult series Dreamhouse Kings–“House of Dark Shadows,” “Watcher in the Woods,” “Gatekeepers,” “Timescape,” “Whirlwind,” and “Frenzy.”
Several of my books have been sold or optioned by Hollywood producers. All of them are in various stages of production. I’m also working on an original screenplay with Andrew Davis (director of “The Fugitive” and “The Guardian). I wrote the screenplay for Ted Dekker’s “Blessed Child.” My short story “Kill Zone” appears in the James Patterson-edited anthology “Thriller,” and my essay on Thomas Perry’s “The Butcher’s Boy” can be found in the anthology “Thriller: 100 Must Reads.”
The 13th Tribe
The Judgment Stone
Review: The House of Dark Shadows by Robert Liparulo