The first of these characters is Dr. Cuthbert Soup. He not only runs the National Center for Unsolicited Advice, he also serves as narrator for this madcap adventure story, offering a word or two of wisdom from time to time. Sometimes, Dr. Soup even has four words — like now:
Listen to this book.
1. Time Travel 101
2. Advanced Spy Photography
3. Bonnet Basics
4. Great Aunts Through the Ages
5. Intro to Germ Theory
6. Care and Feeding of ‘Squito Fish
7. Fundamentals of Black Rock
8. Spiderweb Embroidery
9. Historical & Contemporary Felines
10. Pop Quizzes
11. Foodstuffs of the 1780s
12. Thwarting Ancestral Enemies
13. Techniques in Parallel
After 9/11, Susan and her younger brothers, Charles and Murray, are sent to live with their uncle Farley in Canada. Uncle Farley’s house looks like a ship perched at the edge of the sea, but it’s not until a great flood comes that the house’s name—Drift House—starts to make sense. Floating aimlessly on the Sea of Time, the ship-like house begins to yield its many secrets—including a mural that seems to predict the future, a dumbwaiter that enables Murray to travel into the future and back again, and a parrot historian who’s also a gifted translator. But when a clan of diabolical mermaids trick the children and their uncle into helping them carry out a plan that will stop time forever, it will take all of Susan’s ingenuity along with some help from a great whale, a band of pirates, and a magic carpet—to set things straight.
From the back cover:
The August Ones are back!
Those enigmatic entities manipulating age-old time corridors have once again propelled New Orleans librarian Madeleine St. Jacques into the past. This time her destination is Russia circa 1914, an empire ruled by Tsar Nicholas II and the fabled Romanov dynasty. Arriving in frozen, wintry St. Petersburg, Madeleine finds herself amid grand dukes and duchesses, gypsies and imperial guardsmen, ferocious revolutionaries and corrupt holy men, each with a disparate stake in a doomed nation hurtling toward apocalypse.
“If those superstitious fools learn you’re a time traveler, they’ll tear you to pieces!”
As the guest of Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, Madeleine is seduced by the opulent Romanov world of endless balls, glittering soirees and oceans of vodka while the furtive monster of revolution lurks just outside the palace doors. Her royal idyll is imperiled when she discovers the most imminent threat to the dynasty lies within the family itself and wonders if it’s her destiny to stop it before it’s…
PAST TIME.
Set in a climate of civil war and constantly shifting political alliances, murder, intrigue, and treachery take center stage in The Fourth Horseman, the third Gareth and Gwen medieval mystery.
