Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star
(The Fablehaven series, Book 2)
Brandon Mull
Scholastic
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Last summer, Kendra and her kid brother Seth went to visit their grandparents out in the country, and stumbled into an adventure filled with fairies, imps, monsters and more. To save the magical sanctuary of Fablehaven from a terrible threat, Kendra turned in desperation to the Fairy Queen for help, and was marked forevermore. Normally, her fairy gifts don't bother her much in the ordinary world... but, in the last week of school, a new student joins her in the eighth grade. Everyone else thinks he's the cutest boy on campus, but Kendra's fairy-gifted sight sees through to the hobgoblin within. Worse, he seems to know that she's aware of his true nature. Kendra knows this can't be a good sign.
The Society of the Evening Star, a dark group which seeks the exploitation of magical beasts and subjugation of mankind, is on the move, and has targeted Fablehaven. Somewhere on the grounds, a powerful magical artifact lies hidden, one of five keys to a demonic prison. With the help of the enigmatic Sphinx, Grandma and Grandpa have brought in three new allies to find and retrieve the artifact for relocation to a new, more secure sanctuary - but from the start, trouble and betrayals dog their efforts. A traitor is in their midst, and time is running out.
REVIEW: I read Fablehaven some time ago, and while I enjoyed it, I never foresaw myself following the series further. After reading the abyssmal The Dragons of Ordinary Farm (Tad Williams and Deborah Beale), however, I found a renewed appreciation for what Mull did with the generic "modern-kids-find-magical-world" formula, and vowed to read the second Fablehaven book if I ever found it cheap enough. So, when I saw this book for sale at a thrift store for under a buck, I grabbed it.
Unlike some series authors, Mull doesn't spend much time on recaps, plunging right into Kendra and Seth's new adventures; new readers will likely be disoriented at times. The children were both changed to some degree by their first visit to Fablehaven, but still have more growing up to do. Bookish Kendra is more willing to take risks and bend rules, and even Seth's seemingly self-destructive adventurous streak is tempered, if slightly, by past experiences. The action picks up quickly. Mull always has at least one ball in the air, but manages to juggle them adroitly, making for a fast read with few, if any, lulls. While some elements of the plot proved predictable, other parts are pleasantly original. Fablehaven remains, as it was in the first book, a domain of both wonders and dangers, where even the most beautiful and innocent-seeming magical creatures almost invariably have a deadly side. Once in a while the dialog feels awkward, and the humor leans toward the low-brow. On the whole, it's a worthy and entertaining sequel to the first volume. I expect I'll track down the next book eventually, to see how things go from here.
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