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Ebook Details
  • 02/2020
  • 9780985711436
  • 400 pages
  • $4.99
Paperback Details
  • 02/2020
  • 9780985711429
  • 400 pages
  • $14.95
Brian Meehl
Author
Blowback '94
Brian Meehl, author

Children/Young Adult; General Fiction (including literary and historical)

Iris Jongler-Jinks is about to make her greatest discovery yet. If you want to rescue someone who’s lost in the past—DIY—do it yourself.

In Blowback ’07, Iris discovered her family’s ancient cor anglais—the Horn of Angels—that sends time voyagers to the past to heal their destinies. She’s certain it’s where her mother is—marooned in the past.

In Blowback ’63, Iris discovered that her twin brother Arky is the worst time traveler to ever century hop, much less return with good intel on where their mother might be. Now it’s Iris’s turn.

She is hurled to a time that dreams are made of. A place where her quest to find their mom throws Iris into the company of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, and the most scandalous performer the Moulin Rouge has ever known.

But Iris’s mission isn’t all legends and the City of Light. Her time-travel trashing brother crashes the party. And the siren calls of the past that seem to have bewitched their mother begin to work their spellbinding magic on Iris…and even Arky.

Who will make it home? Who will find home in the past?

Reviews
Meehl concludes his Blowback time-travel trilogy (after Blowback ’63) with this well-constructed tale about twins Iris and Arky Jongler-Jinks. Their father, Howard Jinks, tries to find his wife, Octavia Jongler, in the past; instead he sends his children to 1894 Paris. There the American teens locate their mother, an astrophysicist who disappeared 18 months earlier while investigating lore surrounding their family’s heirloom English horn, known as the Horn of Angels. Iris’s previous efforts to play the instrument (related in the first two books) accidentally transported Arky’s friend Matt to 1907; then she sent Arky and another pal into the Civil War. Now she, Arky, and Octavia live, work and wait in Paris for the reason they time traveled to be revealed so they can go home. Arky’s skeptical friends, whose memories were wiped, regain them in time to take part in the adventure.

Meehl skillfully depicts Iris’s encounters with 19th-century chauvinism and Octavia’s angst as she struggles with the implications of her experiments and plans involving the instrument. Less believable is the romance between Arky and Chloe, a young ballerina whose mother hopes she will become a courtesan. Arky’s shy thoughts about Chloe, especially when she is posing naked for Edgar Degas, feel a little too coy for a modern teenager, and the villainy of Chloe’s wealthy protector, the ironically named Sansfaute, too loudly foreshadows that subplot’s conclusion.

Paris comes alive as the twins interact with historical figures such as Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and one of the Moulin Rouge’s most unique talents: the famous flatulist Le Pétomane. There’s plenty of excitement as hidden agendas are revealed. Fans of the series will love this final installment, in which adventure is the spoonful of sugar that makes history and science go down easily.

Takeaway: Teens with a yen for historical adventures will delight in this tale of 21st-century American twins visiting 1894 Paris.

Great for fans of Lisa Tawn Bergren’s River of Time series, Julie Cross’s Tempest series.

Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: B
Illustrations: -
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: B

Formats
Ebook Details
  • 02/2020
  • 9780985711436
  • 400 pages
  • $4.99
Paperback Details
  • 02/2020
  • 9780985711429
  • 400 pages
  • $14.95
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