Relatively Normal Secrets
by C. W. Allen
GENRE: Middle Grade Adventure Fantasy
BLURB:
Tuesday
and Zed Furst are perfectly normal children with perfectly strange
parents. Their father won’t discuss his job, their mother never
leaves the house without her guard dog, and the topic of the family
tree is off limits.
When
a last minute “business trip” gets the adults out of the way, Zed
and Tuesday decide to get to the bottom of things once and for all.
Too bad some thugs with shape-shifting weapons have other ideas.
Their escape leaves them trapped in the modern-meets-medieval
Falinnheim, where everyone insists their father is a disgraced
fugitive. They hope whoever is leaving them coded clues may have some
answers, but they’re not sure they’re going to like what they
learn.
If
they ever want to see their parents again, they’ll need the help of
a smuggler with a broken compass, their unusually talented dog, some
extremely organized bandits, and a selection of suspiciously
misquoted nursery rhymes.
Zed
and Tuesday may not have all the answers, but one thing is
certain—when it comes to normal, everything is relative.
Purchase Relatively Normal Secrets on Amazon
Excerpt:
At lunch, her father was the headlining topic of conversation. Perhaps, everyone joked, he was some kind of secret agent—if anyone found out what he really did all day, he'd have to erase their memories or have them deported to Jupiter. Tuesday made a hasty decision: better to ride the wave of laughter, than drown in it. This was ridiculous, of course!
Of course it was.
Tuesday heaved her backpack onto the lunch table and made a production of searching for a missing paper until the cafeteria’s collective attention bounded on to a new distraction. She retrieved last week’s History assignment and tried to look intensely interested in reviewing it, staring through the page with unfocused eyes while zoning out to the satisfying snapping sound her carrot sticks made, the pitch falling rhythmically as her teeth chopped each one shorter and shorter.
The newly-hatched suspicions about her parents’ routines burrowed in with the rest of the doubts nesting in her brain. It wasn’t just the way they sidestepped any mention of their lives before they had children. It wasn’t just their odd taste in names. It was just—oh, everything.
Her last name should have been different, for one thing; Tuesday was sure of it. Her father wouldn’t say what it might have been, but anything else would have been fine with her, really. Anything that wouldn’t make her a walking punchline. If her parents hadn’t been so weird, her mother would have taken her father’s last name when they got married, like normal people. Then Tuesday could have inherited his name, instead of just his face.
My Review:
I have been wanting to read Relatively Normal Secrets since the first time I laid eyes on it but for some reason chose to put it off. But when it came on my radar again I jumped at the chance and boy am I glad I did. I can’t wait to read the next book.
I loved Relatively Normal Secrets from the moment I opened it and read that first page. Oh, man, I was hooked. I fell in love with Tuesday, Zed, and their dog Nyx from the very beginning. Nyx actually belongs to their mother. She never went anywhere without her trusty guard dog, Nyx until the day Tuesday’s mom and dad went away on a business trip something they had never done before.
Well, let me back up a little bit to that day in class when Tuesday was given an assignment to write about what her parents did for a living. Tuesday had never given it any thought before that day but she realized that she knew nothing about what her dad did. Her dad never talked about his work or what he does all day. But boy did this assignment open up a whole lot of questions for Tuesday about her family.
Tuesday never got the answers she was looking for as her mom and dad left that day for their trip. After they left Tuesday and Zed decided they were going to find out about their family while they were gone but before they could two men showed up on their doorstep looking for their dad. Tuesday and Zed did exactly as their dad had always told them they ran to the tree in the backyard.
As they were standing there under that tree trying to figure out what to do next something happened they were transported to another world or realm along with their mom’s trusty guard dog Nyx.
Tuesday and Zed found more questions as well as some answers in this other world. Tuesday and Zed asked a lot of questions in this new world which led to more confusing questions. Just when one question was answered another popped up in its place and they were off again.
As I was reading Relatively Normal Secrets I kept seeing Tuesday and Zed as two sweet, charming, and innocent but very intelligent little kids. I kept picturing Tuesday with her little notebook or maybe her thinking notebook in hand as she was trying to find out where her parents were and why their dad was being tracked.
Also while I was reading Relatively Normal Secrets it kept reminding me of The Magicians one reason being that they also went to another world and the magic too of course. But Tuesday kept reminding me of a character from another TV show or movie that I can’t quite catch. It's like that saying about it being on the tip of your tongue but you just can’t quite grasp it.
I do believe that Relatively Normal Secrets would be a great book for young teenagers or anyone who loves to read middle-grade adventure books for that matter. It is a nice clean sweet story. One that I would highly recommend! Grab your copy of Relatively Normal Secrets today!
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
C.W. Allen is a Nebraskan by birth, a Texan by experience, a Hoosier by marriage, and a Utahn by geography. She knew she wanted to be a writer the moment she read The Westing Game at age twelve, but took a few detours along the way as a veterinary nurse, an appliance repair secretary, and a homeschool parent.
She recently settled in the high desert of rural Utah with her husband, their three children, and a noisy flock of orphaned ideas. Someday she will create literary homes for all of them. (The ideas, not her family.)
Relatively Normal Secrets (Cinnabar Moth Publishing, Fall 2021) is her debut novel. She writes fantasy novels for tweens, picture books for children, and short stories and poems for former children. Her work will appear in numerous anthologies in 2021. She is also a frequent guest presenter at writing conferences and club meetings, which helps her procrastinate knuckling down to any actual writing.
Keep up with her latest projects at her website
She is much funnier on Twitter than in person
Author’s page Cinnabar Moth Publishing LLC
2 comments:
Nice blurb and excerpt.
Thank you for sharing your awesome review of Relatively Normal Secrets, this sounds like an excellent book to share with my grandchildren
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