The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum

I bring lots of goodies home with me from the Storymaker’s conference, but I think The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum was my favorite this year. I knew to expect good things from Lisa, but I didn’t know how good until I got pulled into Dante and Abby’s world. Let me tell you, it’s an awesome place to lose yourself for a while.

I purposely held off on reading it until I could clear my schedule. I highly suspected that once I started I would not want to stop, and I was right. I was completely enamored by the end of chapter one and I ended up having to carve out some extra reading time in order to finish faster than I’d first planned. I’m a big fan of good writing in general but as I’ve mentioned before-- it’s the books that grab you so powerfully that you can’t let go even when you should be doing something else that really make my day.

Here, let me sum it up for you:

Totally hot guy

Time travel

Cool music

Great villains

Sweet romance, oh and did I mention

Totally hot guy (I picture him as the teenage version of Josh Groban, nuf’ said) ;)

I’ve also made a mental note to learn Italian. It definitely beats out French as the language of love after reading The Hourglass Door.

I’ve always been a big fan of Leonardo DaVinci and loved the way Lisa wove him into the tale as well. I was however a little bit bummed to realize he didn’t have quite as active roll in the story as I was hoping she was hinting at. (How’s that for an awkward sentence?) What she did instead was completely satisfying, but I still had an “Awe man! It would have been so cool, if. . . ” moment. I won’t say anymore in case it gives something away for you.

Okay, now here’s my shameful confession. I fully remember reading Dante’s Inferno in high school, but, um, somehow I missed the fact that there was a girl involved. Kudos to Lisa for using such intriguing elements as DaVinci’s inventions and classic literature to weave a very engaging tale.

If you, or someone you know, are a Twilight fan you’ll find an awesome, clean “what-to-read-next” option in The Hourglass Door. In fact, don’t tell my teenage daughter I have this book. If she gets her hands on it I’ll never see it again. It’s mine I tell you! Maybe I’ll buy her a copy for Christmas.