THE HOUSE OF WINDJAMMER

In this first volume of a projected series, a potentially fascinating setting—trade-happy Amsterdam in the early 17th century—is made dull by muddled plotting and a crew of characters straight out of central casting. After the deaths of his uncle and father, Adam, 15, is named the head of the Windjammer family, a proud merchant clan now on the verge of losing everything. For reasons that are never adequately explained, the Windjammers have become the target of the ambitious and grandly vindictive ("I have the power to destroy you utterly, Adam Windjammer!") banker Hugo van Helsen, who seeks to take over their remaining assets. Van Helsen's predictably spitfire daughter, Jade ("I want to do more than just raise children.... I want to have adventures and be free. I want to live before I die!"), strikes up a prickly acquaintance with Adam, setting the stage for future star-crossed encounters as the chronicles continue. Meanwhile, the family's devoted clerk, Gerrit, seeks to repair the Windjammer fortunes via a secret money-making scheme that most readers—clued in by the novel's mentions of the contemporaneous tulip craze—will suss out long before Adam does. The hyperbolic writing style merely compounds the weaknesses of the narrative structure. Ages 10-up. (July)