School Library Journal Starred Review (Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2017)

Gr 7-10 Fans of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time will devour this debut author's adventurous new fantasy. Afraid of being called "weird," Freddy Duchamp tries to be invisible at school, but her brilliant little sister Mel and deaf stepbrother Roland often draw too much attention to her. Making matters worse are the new next-door neighbors and quirky Josiah, a boy her age, who follows her to every class. Freddy senses something strange is going on with the newcomers, and soon she's swept away with Josiah on an epic quest through time. Mingling with Vikings, warriors, mythical figures, and futuristic races, her journey becomes one of self-discovery as well as one of self-preservation. Even Roland, her clumsy, annoying stepbrother, doesn't seem so bad with centuries keeping them apart. Yet Josiah seems to be harboring a secret, and Freddy must find the courage to seek the answers if she ever wants to return to her family. This is one of those rare books that surprises readers at every turn because Maaren's deft writing keeps the story impossible to predict. Although the cast of characters is big and the science mind-bending, readers will relate to awkward Freddy's desire to fit in and the coming-of-age lessons she learns from each character on her path. Ultimately, the theme of being true to yourself and yet still kind to others will resonate with young people. VERDICT This wildly imaginative book deserves to be on every YA fantasy shelf. Sandi Jones, Wynne High School, AR

ALA Booklist (Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)

When a strange woman in the park offers her a key, it presages peculiar things to come for 10-year-old Freddy. And come they do four years later when a surpassingly strange woman named Cuerva Lachance and a boy named Josiah, who hotly insists that Cuerva is not his mother, move into the equally strange house next door. Before you can say "how odd," Freddy finds herself transported her new neighbors' company ck in time to ninth-century Sweden. Then it's on to Iron Age China and then to sixteenth-century France and then, well, you get the idea. We're clearly hip deep in a time-travel novel with all the conventions, challenges, and charms of the genre. There are perhaps fewer paradoxes than usual, but make up for it ere are a host of perplexing occasions that invite head-scratching questions. Who, for example, is the person called Three? Why does Josiah develop a doppelgänger? Who or what is Cuerva? Tantalizing questions to hold readers' attention to the end of this intriguing exercise.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this dazzling debut-a love letter to history, legend, and the power of stories that takes inspiration from Norse myth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge-a young woman is catapulted through time and space after she runs afoul of her eccentric neighbors. Fourteen-year-old Freddy Duchamp isn-t sure what to make of her abrasive, rebellious classmate Josiah or the mercurial Cuerva Lachance, who claims to be a private investigator. When Freddy and Josiah fall through a time portal, it-s the start of a fanciful odyssey through the past and future. As they encounter numerous versions of Josiah and Cuerva, who appear to represent order and chaos, Freddy realizes that she or one of her siblings might be the third in their eternally reoccurring trio, destined to tip the balance between opposing forces and influence a story as old as human civilization. This is an ambitious, intricate, joyful coming-of-age tale, with memorable characters and a powerful sense of wonder. Agent: Monica Pacheco, McDermid Agency. (Nov.)