The charming and sometimes cheeky second installment in Hemingway's Sangreal trilogy (after 2005's The Greenstone Grail
) borrows from a wide range of contemporary and classic fantasy, including Michael Moorcock's multiverse and Arthurian legend, but has delightful touches uniquely its author's own. Nathan Ward, the series' now 13-year-old English hero, can dream himself into other worlds, where he must retrieve a trio of hidden "Grail relics." Older and wiser, Nathan finds his first romance with an atypical princess in dire straits, deals with a not-quite-ordinary bully at school and faces danger in his quest for a sword that slays anyone who draws it from its scabbard. Puberty distances Nathan from his sisterly sidekick, Hazel Bagot, who has problems of her own as she attempts to attract love with witchcraft. This spellbinding adventure will leave readers enthusiastically awaiting the third book, which promises answers to myriad mysteries. (Mar.)
