Winterhouse (Ben Guterson)

Winterhouse
The Winterhouse series, Book 1
Ben Guterson
Henry Holt and Co.
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Mystery
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Since her mother died, Elizabeth Somers has been living with a distant aunt and uncle in the town of Drear, and her life is every bit as dreary and miserable as that name implies. No wonder she spends most of her time reading books; she loves words, loves puzzles and anagrams and stories, which are so much better friends than the people around her. Books never judge her for being an orphan, or for being poor. Then, out of the blue, one day she gets home from school and finds her aunt and uncle gone on an unexpected holiday. A note taped to the gate contains a bus ticket, three dollars, and a note that she's to spend the winter break at a hotel she's never heard of, some place called Winterhouse. Without anyone else to call on or anywhere else to go, Elizabeth reluctantly goes to the bus station. She's just certain this hotel is going to be as dismal as everything else in her life.
Much to her surprise, Winterhouse is the most wonderful place she's ever seen, a grand old mountain hotel with all sorts of stuff to do, a massive library chock full of books to read, concerts and movies and lectures and even art galleries to see - and, she quickly finds, a tantalizing puzzle to solve. There's a secret in Winterhouse behind all the wonders, a secret beyond the ordinary, with roots going back to the hotel's founding and the family that has managed it for generations... a secret that might just bring the mighty edifice down around everyone's ears, if a clever girl can't solve the mystery before the new year.

REVIEW: Winterhouse promises a fun, puzzle-filled adventure with a touch of magic around the edges, and delivers in full. Elizabeth, the bookish loner, may not be the most original of middle-grade heroines, but she's a decently written and reasonably competent one, her love of word games and puzzles and reading giving her a strong skill set to draw on in unraveling the mysteries of Winterhouse. She finds a sidekick and the first friend she's made in a good long while in Freddy, a young inventor who is also spending the holidays alone at the hotel, but they aren't the inseparable duo some books present: Freddy may be another bibliophile who can think up anagrams on the fly and solve word ladders (the process of changing one letter at a time to turn one word into another, like "head" to "tail") with ease, but he doesn't care to be drug as deep into the hotel's mysteries as Elizabeth feels compelled to go, putting a strain on the relationship that prompts her to complete some legs of the adventure alone. As one might expect in books like this, there's also an eccentric and generally kindly mentor figure, the hotel proprietor Norbridge Falls, and the old hotel librarian, plus antagonists in the form of a pair of unsavory guests who take an unusual, sinister interest in both Elizabeth and the mystery she's trying to crack. Winterhouse itself makes a great setting for the adventures, a place of joy and wonder and just a hint of something more beneath the surface, like something out of a dream. The plot moves decently fast, with Elizabeth experiencing some troubles and setbacks and moments of self-doubt, but always managing to rise to the occasion, even when she can't get anyone else to listen. There are a few points where Elizabeth is a little too obtuse for too long, and once in a while the baddies could be a trifle plot-convenient in when and how they pop up, but overall it's an enjoyable romp with enough danger around the edges to give it some heft. As the first in a series, it's a given that a few threads are left dangling at the end, and it does follow a by-now-familiar young adult fantasy adventure formula in some respects, but overall it gets solid marks.

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