Sapphire Blue
In this sequel to Ruby Red, reluctant time travelers Gwen and Gideon return to continue their adventures between worlds. The Circle of Twelve live and travel over a 500-year period, with very little control as to where and when they will next travel. The time-traveling gene is passed down through the generations, and when Gwen Shepherd finds that she holds the traveler gene in her family – rather than her cousin Charlotte, who had studied history, languages, and 19th-century deportment since she was a child in expectation of taking on the role – she is unprepared. To complicate matters further, her time traveling partner, Gideon, alternates between expressing romantic feelings for her and acting cold and impatient. Together, Gwen and Gideon must travel back in time to the 18th century, where two of their time-traveling relatives are up to mischief, and ghosts and gargoyle demons abound.
I enjoy a good time travel book. This book is for young adults, and yet I found myself getting lost in time along with the characters. I liked that Gwen meets one of the guardians of the group as a young man and also as a younger version of her grandfather, during her scheduled lapses into the past. However, I did wonder why, since Lucy Montrose is Gwen’s first cousin and only twenty years her senior, the two girls didn’t connect in the present time to discuss the threats they had to face in the past. Overall, though, a fun and challenging read.
