Chris Humphreys, The Fetch

The Fetch

Chris Humphreys

Knopf, Jul 11, 2006, $17.99

ISBN: 0375932925

The old sea chest that belonged to Sigurd, his Norwegian maternal grandfather that he never met, arrives at the family's new home in Shropshire. Teenager Sky knows that Sigurd went to sea when his daughter (Sky's mom) was six only to die a year later.

After school, Sky and his cousin Kristin open the chest to find an enigmatic journal and twenty-four rune stones. Upon seeing the find Sky feels the persistent nightmare he has suffered from for years in which a strange ghost like essence has chased after him is finally going to make sense. Once he arranges the rune stones in accordance to a diagram in the journal, his dangerous adventures begin as he now finds parts of his grandfather's remains in some other realm and can travel through time and space. However, unaware that by doing this, he has released his FETCH, the wraith of himself, just like Sigurd once did. As he struggles to stay alive, Sky can enter the bodies of his ancestors, but the mission has become to save the soul of Kristin in peril from either their grandfather's Fetch or Sigurd himself.

Though targeting the teen crowd, fantasy readers of all ages will appreciate THE FETCH because of Chris Humphreys skill in taking an everyday young adult struggling with missing his school-bus and placing him in extraordinary circumstances of life and death. The story line is action-packed and fast-paced as Sky adapts to his new powers and abilities yet struggles to understand why this happened to him while also eluding a lethal ghost. Readers will cheer for Sky as he plunges deeper into the Viking mythos past and present while learning about his heritage and his destiny leading to a great opening to the Runestone Saga.

Harriet Klausner