My son and I stumbled into The Mark of the Dragonfly at our local library by sheer chance. The cover caught my eye. Sometimes, that’s enough. But the story kept us intrigued, as writer Jaleigh Johnson wove a tapestry of a world that was as immersive fiction, as if Johnson had stumbled into the lands only to tell us the story. In this place, magical and mysterious objects fall from the sky in a meteor scrap fields — things from other planets, perhaps. There is a lot not yet known in this story Johnson is telling of this place.
Now comes The Secrets of Solace, and while this young adult novel (we have an advance copy thanks to my wife, a librarian who visited a conference and came home loaded with books) is not a true sequel to The Mark of the Dragonfly, it is still set in the same world, and the war that had begun in the earlier book is now the backdrop for The Secrets of Solace.
Johnson has not just woven a world out of imagination, she also pays keen attention to character development. Here, we have Lina, an archivist apprentice, who is hiding a secret from her people: the discovery of an airship buried deep in their mountain stronghold. Another character, Ozben, is a prince in hiding, and together, Lina and Ozben must solve the mystery of this ship in order to bring an end to the war that threatens to unravel the entire world.
With mystery and adventure and solid writing, Johnson hooks the reader early with character backstories and then steps on the gas with thrilling adventures, and once you know the ship, you will never look at your car or an airplane the same way again.
Peace (in all the worlds),
Kevin