cover image Treasure Forest: Book One of the Forest Inside Trilogy

Treasure Forest: Book One of the Forest Inside Trilogy

Cat Bordhi, . . Ace, $14 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-441-01369-2

First published by a small press specializing in books on spirituality, Bordhi's young adult novel won the Nautilus Award at the 2004 BEA, but this relaunch is unlikely to win over older fantasy readers. The late Grandma Daphne's will requests that daughter Lily bring her family—husband, Peter; 13-year-old daughter, Sara; and 12-year-old son, Ben—to live in Daphne's forest house for a year. The children, sounding much younger than their given ages, immediately break all the rules set by their irrational, controlling mother. Ben almost dies at the hands of Daggett, Daphne's ex-lover turned woods-dwelling wildman, and then thanks him for the experience. Sara is whisked off by the spirit Esther to learn about inner peace, though this lesson doesn't include letting her family know where she is so they can also feel inner peace. Some may find Lily and Peter too flatly painted to take their eventual embrace of magic and wonder seriously, but all will cheer the one well-drawn character, a three-legged bloodhound named Matthias, as he leads the hunt for the missing Sara. (Apr.)