This is a great YA Fantasy novel based on the common plot of children who are snatched from their normal lives and find themselves in a different, magical world where they must survive.
Action begins immediately, with horrendous fog monsters, claustrophobic tunnels, a beautiful sorceress and a mysterious voice that speaks into their minds. From this point, our heroes are rushed along a bewildering chase, with characters, setting and conflicts being revealed at a reasonable pace to keep our interest up.
The conflict continues at several different levels, and it’s a bit hard to keep track, especially of the officials and higher level magical beings, who don’t appear very often. But the continuity of the main characters keeps us up to date with what’s going on.
The personalities of the heroes are the strength of the writing. The children act in realistic and sympathetic ways to the fantastic events and earn our empathy and affection.
A minor point: the prologue seems too separate from the rest of the story. By the time the tale is finished, the reader has forgotten the questions created at the start. At that point, the short-term conflicts of this novel have been mostly solved, leaving the longer-term conflicts for future books in the series.
This is a wonderful Fantasy for pre-teen readers, or a read-aloud for younger children. There is a certain level of violence, so parental guidance would be appropriate.
5 stars.