Magic, Mystery & Another Very Strange Adventure
by Lissa Evans
This magical follow-up to Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms continues Stuart's amazing adventures - with more enchantment, more surprises, and more thrills. When we last left 10-year-old Stuart, he had just recovered his great-uncle Tony's long-lost magic workshop. Now all the priceless tricks are on display in the Beeton Museum - and Stuart is junior curator of the exhibit! But another mystery awaits Stuart: Where did the great magician hide his will? Only by entering the magic world of the workshop can he find the answer. But as the mechanisms whisk him off on increasingly incredible adventures, the puzzles become harder and harder to solve and the stakes higher. With even more page-turning action, this second book in the exciting middle-grade series does a magic trick of its own: it's even better than the first!
"Stuart Horten, 10, is back for a second mysterious adventure...it's still rollicking good fun and often engagingly suspenseful, perfect for a quick read or entertaining read-aloud." - Kirkus Reviews
"The plots weave together nicely, the language is precise and intelligent and theres always a lot of humor accompanying the proceedings. Altogether, Hortens Incredible Illusions makes for a fantastic read." - LitStack
"Evans borrows several classic tropes and themes - magic, riddles, a quest, and even a night at a museum - for the entertaining story of 10-year-old Stuart Horten...[she] has crafted an old-fashioned mystery of the kids-besting-clueless-adults variety." - Publishers Weekly
This information about Horten's Incredible Illusions was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lissa Evans grew up in England, in the West Midlands. After studying medicine at Newcastle University, she worked as a junior doctor for four years, before working as a radio and television producer.
Evans turned to writing in 2002, and is the author of three previous novels, including Their Finest Hour and a Half, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Crooked Heart was also longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize); it is her first novel to be published in the US. Evans lives in London with her family.

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