Young Adult Book Reviews

Genre: Historical fiction

# of Pages:  412

RAC Book:  Yes

Iowa Teen Award Winner 2010

Conor Broekhart is born in a hot air balloon at the world’s fair in 1878 and he is obsessed with flying forever after.  He grows up on the Saltee Islands off the coast of Ireland where his father heads the king’s security.  King Nicholas is very forward thinking and supportive of science and flying, so he enlists a friend of his to come and tutor Conor and his daughter, Isabella.  Conor greatly enjoys his time with Victor as they practice fencing, scientific experiments, and air exploration.  All of this changes when the King and Victor are assassinated by an evil member of the king’s advisors.  Conor is blamed for the conspiracy against the king and is sent to work underground in diamond mines, but he fails to give up and plans to one day fly again.

This is a very different story than most readers will be used to from this author, but it is adventurous and engaging from the first page.  Conor’s strength, intelligence, and perseverance take a hopeless situation and find some light.  The plot twists are compelling and detailed to keep the story moving and all of the characters are well developed, even if they are not in the story that much.  Anyone would enjoy this read, but it will be especially interesting to teenage boys.