Summer Reading Spectacular #8

The random road trip cut into my reading time a bit, but I'm verging on completing a few books, so there may be a rush on updates soon enough.

I did finish The One Left Behind, though. This was the last book from Willo Davis Roberts before her death last year. It's a novel for young readers and, though not one of her strongest, is a quick and motivated read. Davis was a three-time Edgar Allen Poe Award winner (in Juvenile and Young Adult categories, though she also wrote for an adult audience) and I know that her mysteries certainly keep youngsters on the edge of their seats wanting to know what happens next. If I have a complaint about some of her later novels, it's simply that she seems to go to great lengths to get her protagonists alone at the wrong time so that adventure can occur. In Hostage, it's an allergy attack that requires nasal spray. Seriously. In this case, it's a big family scattered to the four winds with weekend plans, all assuming that the youngest is with someone else. Still, the set-ups aside, her books tend to have clean, adventurous storylines that appeal to kids who are ready for just a little danger in their reading.