DEEPEST, DARKEST

Twin brothers, one a human and one a goblin changeling, seek their own paths but find the end of the world in this sequel to The Unready Queen (2020).

Tinn and Cole, brothers once as close as could be, are growing apart. Cole seeks to solve the mystery of their long-lost father, while changeling Tinn feels like an outsider in his human family. But amid the worsening earthquakes and the vanishing people and magical creatures, the boys must work together. Something very dangerous is happening under the Wild Wood, something much worse than the dark Thing that had menaced them all until the recent battle. In a lovely, successful inversion of expectation, the boys and their friends bring protective adult family along on their dangerous adventure (although of course circumstances conspire to require the children to do the bulk of the world-saving alone). In the deepest caverns, the adventurers encounter new magical creatures unlike any they’ve met before and discover that rebuilding a family is messy and painful. Can they trust the rået, the Tommyknocker, and the kobbs? The giant magma serpent? As they defeat a “pretty standard apocalypse,” the boys learn, as one goblin says, “Things dinna ever go back ta the way they were. Thass na how life works.” Previous titles cue the boys as White.

Cinematic adventure and hope amid darkness, flavored with silliness: a winner.