Publication Date: 1 September 2022

The Blurb

Who would you trust to save the world…a boy or a billionaire? The earth has shifted on its axis and a mysterious dark mark has appeared on the sun – the whole world is in peril! But billionaire tech genius Howard Hansom has a plan… When Grian’s sister goes missing he’s convinced she has run off to Hansom’s new city to help save the world. But when Grian and his two friends Jeffrey and Shelli track her there they find that nothing is quite as it seems. Why is everything so secret? Where is the mysterious Area 13? What does Howard Hansom want with all the people he has enticed to live in his city? The days are getting darker but what’s really happening to the sun?

The Review

A heart-stopping mystery, balancing dark and light perfectly, as mystery within mystery unfurls from the pages.

Grian is happy to drift under the radar and would rather be alone than with someone likely to make him stand out, which makes his need to work with Jeffrey and Shelli to uncover the truth about where his sister and grandad are all the more difficult at first. But as evidence mounts that maybe all he knows may not be true, he leans more and more on his two new quirky friends. Where Jeffrey is a tech genius, Shelli is a born naturalist, talents that when used together are unstoppable.

The technology is scarily real in the seemingly perfect city created by Howard Hansom to save the world, as is the power of social media in persuading people what the ‘truth’ is. Hopefully, this will open children’s eyes to the need for critical thinking when evaluating ‘facts’ online. It also highlights our ever growing reliance on technology that tracks our habits, learning more about us than we would think possible.

A gripping mystery with much to think about, I cannot wait to see what happens next.

Great for fans of:

• Adam-2 by Alastair Chisholm
• Zo And The Forest Of Secrets by Alake Pilgrim
• Pop! by Mitch Johnson

Huge thanks to Usborne for sending me a copy.