Beyond The Hub Conjuror by DJ Forrest

Written by John & Carole Barrowman

Published in 2016 by Head of Zeus Ltd

‘The first Conjuror came to America in a slave ship. In 1797 a lone ship drifted up a tributary of the Mississippi. Alonzo Blue, overseer of the Dupree Plantation, spotted the two-decker bobbing in the choppy water. As news spread of the ship’s strange arrival, the field slaves vanished into their damp huts, closed their shutters and shoved pellets of hardtack into their ears. They knew what was coming…’

Conjuror takes a new turn in the Matt and Em Calder - Hollow Earth series by introducing us to a new character, Rémy Dupree Rush, a seventeen-year-old boy of African race, who has a rare and special gift.

Unlike Matt and Emily Calder, who can fade in and out of pictures to transport themselves to another time, Rémy uses music, but he has to choose his moments, because just like the Calder twins, using his talents can raise a lot of suspicion and bring dark elements into play.

Conjuror is a page turner. Every chapter is short but has enough action and detail to keep you going, and you can’t just read one or two chapters, you need to reach a point where you have to say – ‘I need to go to work now’.

You could very easily finish this book in a day, and if I had a spare day, I probably would have. Carole has a way with words and if you thought that you’d had a history lesson alone with the last book of the Hollow Earth trilogy, then you’re not going to be disappointed with this one. Once again you become knowledgeable regarding your classic paintings and some you’ve now begun hunting down on search engines. Putting that aside though, those of us who have followed John through his Whoniverse life as Captain Jack Harkness, won’t be surprised to discover a nod to Doctor Who in one of the pages – whether that was deliberate or not, it raised a smile nevertheless.

A few swear words did make me wonder which age bracket we were looking at in terms of reader but then given a majority of John’s fans are of the ‘big kids’ category – (was going to say adults but are any of us mature enough to admit that yet?) I don’t think the odd ‘F’ word will offend anyone.

Conjuror is a brilliant, well held together novel that keeps you hooked to the very last page, and I have to admit, that when I reached the last page, I wished that I had another book to leap towards.

Conjuror is Part One of the Orion Chronicles – to find out more about the Orion Organisation, you’re just going to have to read the novel.  There are two more novels after this of which I will putting down on my Santa list.

Brilliant story guys – I had the characters in my head and felt I was there with them at times – Imagination truly is a powerful thing.