Sometimes middle grade and YA authors write an action/adventure story that tries to have it both ways - it's an adventure/mystery but it's also a hip ironic put down of the genre. Well, Becca Smith doesn't follow that route. She embraces all that's most appealing and worthy from the genre and tries to do the best that can be done with it.
So, we get two very different heroines who immediately bond and become best friends. Just pick your favorite and then root for both of them. There's a bit of family drama when Alexis is farmed out to Great Aunt Mae for the summer, but that's just for starters and blows over quickly. There's an over-the-top bully bad guy, but we don't beat it to death, and he's mostly around to add some menace and to make the treasure hunt a race. There's no swoony, distracting, unbelievable romance. We're treasure hunting, and both girls' families could use a little treasure, but there's no belabored sob story. Everything is in balance, restrained and well crafted.
Mysterywise, we have to solve cyphers and cryptograms and figure out vague clues and do a little digging and overland adventuring. And the puzzles and clues are fair and interesting. This isn't like lazy books that just drop solutions into the heroines' laps. Someone doesn't just think really hard for a minute and solve a hundred year old puzzle. No one suddenly notices that the combination to the lock is also the prime root of the number representing a possum's average weight in ounces. No sir, the girls have to actually think and to try a whole bunch of different angles to get to their puzzle solving reward.
But this isn't just a dry puzzle story. Alexis and Olivia are appealing characters, with distinct and engaging personalities. Sometimes their dialogue leans a little toward exposition and monologuing, but mostly they sound like and come across like real girls on an adventure. There are a lot of little details and grace notes that add color and ground the story in something like reality. So, it's entertaining and if it's a bit old-fashioned in a Nancy Drew kind of way, well there's a reason why those sorts of books have been loved and remembered by generations of thrilled readers. And at bottom, that's the best you could want.
Please note that I found this book back when it was an Amazon Kindle freebies. (It's currently a kindleunlimited free read.) I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.
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