Carole E. Barrowman

John Barrowman

Lots of twins have a special connection - being able to finish each other's sentences; sensing what the other is thinking; perhaps even knowing when the other is in trouble or in pain - but for 12-year-old twins, Matt and Emily Calder, the connection is beyond special. Together, the twins have extraordinary powers - they are able to bring art to life, or enter paintings at will. Their abilities are sought by villains trying to access the terrors of Hollow Earth - a place where all the demons, devils and creatures ever imagined lie trapped for eternity. The twins flee with their mother to the security of an island, off the west coast of Scotland, where their grandfather has certain protective powers of his own. But too much is at stake, and the twins aren't safe there either. The villains will stop at nothing to find Hollow Earth and harness the powers within - even if the twins must die.

Hollow Earth

Nessa Luna

Read this review, and many more on my blog October Tune!

Honestly, one of the reasons I was interested in this book, was because it was co-written by John Barrowman, who most of you might know from either Doctor Who, Torchwood or Arrow. Then, of course, I read the summary and I thought it sounded interesting, so that is the reason I eventually bought it.

The first thing I noticed, was that this book has a map of the island the twins and their mum are staying on, which is something I really like – because sometimes I find it hard to imagine the place in which the book happens; because of the way people describe it, so with this book I often found myself flipping back to the beginning of the book to see where the people in the story were at that moment.

I also really liked the concept; being able to animate yourself into paintings, or having your drawings come to life. I mean, who wouldn’t want that? Okay, maybe the whole ‘scary things appearing when you’re scared’ thing isn’t really that awesome (I mean, spiders the size of a cat, no thank you!), but the rest is really something I would love to be able to do!

There were some parts in the book where I wasn’t 100% sure what exactly happened, and I had to re-read that part again to understand what had happened (and sometimes after re-reading it I still didn’t understand it), because so many things happened all at once, and the POV’s kept changing and telling the same part of the story again, so that was a bit annoying. There was also one character who had a Scottish accent, and her dialogue was written that way, which is something I find annoying, an accent being written down (like Hagrid’s in Harry Potter). Because sometimes I just don’t get what they’re saying.

I gave this book three planets, because though I couldn’t really relate to any of the characters, and some parts were a bit confusing to me, I did really enjoy this book, and I am definitely going to read the second one, because I just really want to know what happened! I can’t really handle it when a book ends in a ‘cliffhanger’ (though this wasn’t really a proper cliffhanger, but still, not everything that happened in this book was solved).

Robin M Cabana

Tom Turner

Possessing extraordinary powers, including the ability to bring artwork to life, twelve-year-old twins Matt and Emily are sought by villains trying to access the terrors of Hollow Earth, a place where demons and mythological beasts lie trapped for eternity.

Hollow Earth

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