After a bit of a hiatus from writing book reviews (thank you, dissertation), I’m so excited to share with you The Haunted Cathedral, Book #2 of Antony Barone Kolenc’s Harwood Mysteries series.
In book 1, Xan becomes an orphan when his village is attacked, and he ends up living in the care of the Benedictine monks at Harwood Abbey. In this second book, Xan has settled in at the Abbey and made friends with a number of people, including Brother Andrew, fellow orphan Joshua, and Lucy, who lives at the nearby convent.
When book 2 opens, several problems confront Xan. First, his friend Lucy has been called away from the convent to travel with her father for a while. Then, a bailiff from his old village of Hardonbury arrives at the monastery to inform Xan that he is still a serf of Hardonbury, even though he’s an orphan. He must either pay the head money to become a free peasant or return to Hardonbury as a serf.
Xan has one chance to escape that. He must find his long-lost uncle and convince him to either adopt him or pay his head money. But finding his dad’s brother means traveling to a distant city in a wagon with the criminal responsible for his parents’ death.
I enjoyed this second book even more than the first. There are really two mysteries for Xan to solve. First, he must find his uncle. Second, while he’s in the town where his uncle is believed to reside, he discovers that the local cathedral is rumored to be haunted, and Xan wonders if the ghost could reconnect him with his dead parents.
Like the first book in the series, I’d recommend this for middle grade students who enjoy both adventure and mystery. A love of history doesn’t hurt either, as Kolenc bases part of his story on two actual buildings, Lincoln Castle and Lincoln Cathedral. A nice addendum at the end of the book shares the history of these two structures and what actually happened there.
Looking forward to the next adventure with Xan and his friends!
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