![]() ![]() Christopher and Tom’s friendship has a distinctly Harry/Ron dynamic to it – one is charismatic and resourceful, the other headstrong and loyal.Ĭhristopher’s master is the brilliant and endlessly patient Benedict Blackthorn (Dumbledore, basically, if we’re continuing with the Potter comparison). His accomplice is his buddy Tom Bailey, the baker’s son. Naturally, he builds a cannon and nearly blows his own head off. Fourteen-year-old Christopher Rowe, an apothecary’s apprentice with a knack for cracking codes and a taste for risky schemes, has worked out his master’s recipe for gunpowder. The Blackthorn Key is a novel filled with history and explosions, and it’s the latter that are more memorable, by far. ![]() The charged political atmosphere helps drive the plot, but as with most of the other historical elements in this speedy and often graphically violent historical thriller, the veracity of the details is less important than the push to deliver big payouts on both sides of that genre label. Instead of writing, say, the kidlit version of Interstellar, Sands plunks readers down amid the sights and smells of 1667 London, less than a decade after the death of Oliver Cromwell and the restoration to the throne of Charles II. Not just alchemy, but also dark conspiracies, political intrigue, mysterious codes, murder, and early treatments for asthma. ![]() Toronto author Kevin Sands holds two degrees in theoretical physics, so naturally his first novel is about … 17th-century alchemy. ![]()
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