Title: The Invisible Hand (Shakespeare’s Moon #1)
Author: James Hartley
Published date: 22nd February 2017
Published by: Lodestone Books
Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy
Readership: YA
Format: Paperback
Pages: 168
Rating: 3.5 / 5 stars
Synopsis:
The Invisible Hand is about a boy, Sam, who has just started life at a boarding school and finds himself able to travel back in time to medieval Scotland. There he meets a girl, Leana, who can travel to the future, and the two of them become wrapped up in events in Macbeth, the Shakespeare play, and in the daily life of the school. The book is the first part of a series called Shakespeare´s Moon. Each book is set in the same boarding school but focuses on a different Shakespeare play.
I love adaptations. That was the main reason I was attracted to this book. Time travel, not so much, but James Hartley has managed to make it fun, and the Sam and Leana’s time traveling was the thing I looked forward to the most in the book.
A couple of years back—when I was in high school—I was interested in Shakespeare’s plays, although I never took English Lit. or we never did study any of Shakespeare’s works in English Class. So, I had to read it on my own, and kind of had to rely on the Internet for things I didn’t understand. But this book make things easier. I’m not saying this book is a “guide” for Macbeth, but it could give readers information they’re missing from the play (especially if you were like me, who didn’t have a teacher to help explain things haha).
This was a fast read, but the first few chapters may be a little bit slow-paced. But don’t give up on the book though. Once Leana appeared in the future, things get more interesting. I certainly love the interaction between the two of them, and their adventures were interesting to read.
Overall, I think this was an interesting read, with the right amount of mystery, adventures, and battle, although I wish they were more time travel to the past. While I had fun with this book, I do think that it was probably aimed at the lower spectrum of YA, considering the main characters themselves were in their early teen years.
I rate this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.
About the Author:
James was born on the Wirral, England, in 1973 on a rainy Thursday. He shares his birthday with Bono, Sid Vicious and two even nastier pieces of work, John Wilkes Booth and Mark David Chapman.
His mother was a hairdresser with her own business and his father worked in a local refinery which pours filth into the sky over the Mersey to this day. They married young and James was their first child. He has two younger brothers and a still-expanding family in the area. As an Everton fan he suffered years of Liverpool success throughout the seventies and was thrilled when his father took a job in Singapore and the family moved lock, stock and two smoking barrels to Asia.
He spent five fine years growing up in the city state before returning to the rain, storms, comprehensive schools and desolate beauty of the Scottish east coast. Later years took he and his family to baking hot Muscat, in Oman, and a Syria that has since been bombed off the surface of the planet.
James studied journalism in London and later travelled through Ireland, France, Germany and India generally having a good time, before finally settling in Madrid, Spain, where he now lives with his wife and two children.
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International Giveaway:
Giveaway – Win 5 x Signed copies of The Invisible Hand with special Invisible Hand tactile pens (Open Internationally)
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