One of the benefits of doing reviews is that you get exposed to genres that you would not have considered reading in the past. In the past couple of years as a Book Review Blogger, I have decided to read young adult novels. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and Book 1 of Jill Williamson’s Safe Lands Series have become my introduction to the hottest genre in the publishing world. As a result, the quality of those aforementioned books have dropped my resistance to this genre and confirms the old adage, “A good story moves past all our of defenses and takes into a world that you would have never experienced before.”

When I read about The Place of Voices by Lauren Lynch, I knew instantly this would be a novel I would review for my 2015 lineup. The Place of Voices is the first book in the TimeDrifter Series and revolves around two main characters, Brendan and Anna.

Brendan, a young man stricken with polio, and Anna, a young lady that has lost her parents, have the ability to travel through time in order to find out how their lives are connected by events that happened in the past. Their time traveling leads them to the world of the Mayans where both of them become connected to a Mayan Princess named Tzutz Nik. Tzutz Nik is in line to become a queen of the Mutul Kingdom. 

However, she is reluctant to embrace this path that has been laid out of for her.

There is evil lurking throughout the novel that will force all three of them to face their greatest fears head-on.  Lynch uses anthropomorphic animals as other characters in the story that seemed like a homage to The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and the theme of the sacrifice is grounded in a Christian worldview that’s apparent throughout the novel.

The Place of Voices is a solid Young Adult Fantasy Novel and recommended for kids from 11-up and adults who love fantasy as well.

two books in a row with talking condors!

i love it when that kind of serendipity happens.  

. . . and a pretty heavy-handed one.  Don't know if I can finish the whole thing.  This is the second one in as many weeks.  At least the other one was short.

i actually started this one in January and kept interrupting it for things like life.  Could be another reason why its not captivating me.

on the good side, there's a tree house.

“That’s a lovely banyan tree. We had them in Australia.” The massive beauty protruded from a hill overlooking the river. A large root, exposed at the river’s edge reached toward them like an inanimate tentacle. Thick horizontal branches extended from an open center.

She longed to climb its graceful branches. If they’d been on land, she would have made a beeline for it.  “It would be perfect for a tree house if I was still into that sort of thing.” His puckered brow softened.

His grip on the paddle even seemed to loosen a bit. “You can never be too old for a tree house.” Anna hugged her knees. She was quite certain she would never be too old for one.

Oh, and it's time travel, which is why I selected it in the first place. We have a fifth century Mayan princess and two twentieth century children, a Washington state boy from the fifties and an Australian girl from the thirties, all transported to a timeless place, where the only inhabitants so far have been talking animals.

and we've had, like, a hundred pages of "rest and meditation," which is driving me more than a little nuts.

“Why are we here, great one?” Nik knelt in front of him always so formal like he was royalty instead of her. “What wisdom may I take to my people?”

“For the moment, you need only rest -- renew your minds -- just as you learned to do in the Place of Stillness. . . 

“Isn’t it amazing?” Babana thrust his paws wide like a conductor calling an orchestra to attention. “We have a symphony of crickets under a cloudless, starry sky. You will come to enjoy this, I assure you.”

And Brendan, the boy, has been given a talisman by one of the denizens of the woods, and he's become all  moody, unpleasant, argumentative, and solitary. Yawn.

(I'm only 26% in, it's too soon to quit yet. 

But, it's taken me weeeeeks to get this far.

you can do it, you can do it.

probably I'll start loving it in the next ten pages!  Okay, fifteen pages.

Here I go again.)