The Toadhouse Trilogy by Jess Lourey

Aine (pronounced "Aw-nee") believes herself to be a regular teenager in 1930s Alabama, but when a blue-eyed monster named Biblos attacks, she discovers that the reclusive woman raising her isn't really her grandmother and that she's been living inside a book for the past five years. With her blind brother, Spenser, she flees the pages of the novel she's called home, one terrifying step ahead of Biblos' black magic. Her only chance at survival lies in beating him to the three objects that he desires more than life.

As she undertakes her strange and dangerous odyssey, Aine must choose between a family she doesn't remember and her growing attraction to a mysterious young man named Gilgamesh. Only through treacherous adventures into The Time Machine, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, A Tale of Two Cities, and the epic Indian saga The Ramayana will she learn her true heritage and restore the balance of the worlds... if she can stay alive. ~~ synopsis from Goodreads

My thoughts about The Toadhouse Trilogy ~~

Wow! This is one awesome book! And guess what? It's a trilogy! So there is more to come!

Can you tell I am excited about this series? I loved it! The story starts off with a lot of action and questions to be answered. The reader can't help but to keep on reading to find out what is going to happen next. It is so confusing (in a good way) and there is so much to try to understand.

I immediately loved Aine and her gentle little brother, Spenser. Aine takes such good care of him and has ever since her mother disappeared and they went to stay with their Grandma Glori. As soon as Aine is old enough, she is going to set out to find their mother.

But then weird things start to happen and she finds out that her life is not what she thought it was. The children find out that they are living a story in a book and that the mean and ugly Biblos is after them. Grandma informs Aine and Spenser that they need to find three objects in order beat Biblos and survive. Book one of the trilogy is their adventure to find the first object.

They eventually meet Gilgamesh, a mysterious young man who has a toadhouse that they use to travel from story to story in search of the first object. In order to travel in the toadhouse they have to shrink down to fit inside. I loved that part of the story and would have loved to travel with them.

Another wonderful aspect of this story is that they have to travel from story to story to find the rods that Grandma Glori told them they needed to find. It was awesome to be reading about those stories within a story! A book-lovers dream!

And each chapter ended with a little cliffhanger which completely drew me into the story and made me want to read without stopping - just one more chapter..... please? And the ending? Total cliffhanger! I can't wait to read book two!!

Here are some great lines that I marked. And they won't make sense so you really need to read The Toadhouse Trilogy to figure out what they mean.

~ 'There is one uglier than me, fair child, uglier than a hundred of me. And he's coming for you'

~ 'Beware the marked child'

~ 'The world is full of bad people, she'd told them repeatedly, terrible people who will take children away forever to a dark, screaming place where no one will ever love them and the whispering monsters will feed off their tears. The bad just need a chance, so don't ever open the door.'

~ 'When what you find is true, the next object will be revealed to you. There are three, and they will bring you to your true family.'

~ 'If you change the outcome of the story, it's lost. Once the book ends, everyone in it will disappear forever.'

I loved how this book takes us into the storybook world and explains how that world works. I personally am one who believes that toys come alive when we are sleeping and that storybook characters actually do take on lives of their own. It was great to let my imagination go wild while I was in this story!

About the author

Jess Lourey is the author of The Toadhouse Trilogy: Book One, the first in a young adult series that celebrates the danger and excitement of reading. She also writes the critically-acclaimed Murder-by-Month Mysteries for adults with a sense of humor. She's been teaching writing and sociology at the college level since 1998. When not gardening, writing, or hanging out with her wonderful kids and dorky dog, you can find her reading, watching SyFy-channel original movies, and dreaming big.

Acclaimed mystery author Jess Lourey takes her writing in an exciting new direction with THE TOADHOUSE TRILOGY, Book One, a YA novel that hits bookshelves with a bang on August 1, 2012.
In the first installment of this trilogy, Aine (pronounced "Aw-nee") believes herself to be a regular teenager in 1930s Alabama, but when a blue-eyed monster named Biblos attacks, she discovers that the reclusive woman raising her isn't really her grandmother, that fairies are real, and that she's been living inside the most famous book of all time for the past five years. With her blind brother, Spenser, she flees the pages of the novel she's called home, one terrifying step ahead of Biblos' black magic. Her only chance at survival lies in beating him to the three objects that he desires more than life.

As they undertake their strange and dangerous odyssey in a race against time, Aine is forced to choose between a family she doesn't remember and her growing attraction to a mysterious young man named Gilgamesh. Only by entering stories will they learn the truth of their heritage and restore the balance of the worlds...if they can stay alive.

With dangerous adventures into Wells’ THE TIME MACHINE, Stevenson’s DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, Dickens’ A TALE OF TWO CITIES, and the Indian saga THE RAMAYANA, this series aims to do for classic literature what the PERCY JACKSON series did for Greek mythology. In the words of Anthony and Agatha Award winning author Chris Grabenstein, “Lourey's wonderful way with words will whisk readers away to an amazing new world!”

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