Young Knights of the Round Table by Julia Golding

This book says on the cover, “Under threat. Out of time. Pure magic.”

The “under threat” refers to the Earth as its very existence is under attack; the “out of time” refers to the parallel world from which attack is coming, a world where time runs differently, where 1 year passes compared with 100 Earth years, and “pure magic” because magic is involved all through the book.

The story starts in the parallel world where young humans Rick, Roxy and Santiago are being trained to hate humans because they themselves are orphans abandoned by the horrible humans before they were taken there by the Fey. But something is afoot. A magical power is threatening the rule of the world and something needs to be done so these three humans are sent into the human world to investigate, to Oxford to be precise.

There ensues a few funny moments as these three adjust to an alien environment with Rick in particular finding things strange as he infiltrates Earth. Their “foster parents” also stand out a bit, what with them being a Fey and a Pixie and basing their human lives on fictional books such as Sherlock Holmes stories.

As things progress the three children get deeper into finding out what is going on discovering that how the world they have been living has been a lie, and how the setting up of a new round table could be pivotal to linking the two worlds and overthrowing the evil King of the parallel world called Avalon, for it was the time of Arthur and Merlin at the round table before when Avalon was last threatened in the same way. 

There is a good crescendo at the end with a Darth Vader moment too, as decisions over which side to represent become harder.

There was the occasional slightly confusing moments as the magic interactions between the two worlds were explained but overall the book is well written, is set up at the end for the next in the series, and should provide a thrilling read for any young or old knights that choose to read it.

The book releases on 4 April 2013. It is listed on Amazon UK HERE.