Search For The Shadow Key

“You can’t have it both ways, “ Rigby said. “Either you let a Rift form and you have your sister back, or you honor your so-called Creeds and leave your sister to rot. What a struggle it is for you. I marvel at that. Fortunately, I have made the hard choice all the more easy for you. I’ve destroyed the Shadow Key. I tossed it into the raging furnace of Xander’s Fortune. You’ll never close the Inner Sanctum, and the Scath will shed the Dream fabric.”

Book: Search for the Shadow Key (Dreamtreaders) by Wayne Thomas Batson, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2015

Genre: Speculative/Fantasy

Target Audience: Boys 12+

Subjects: Dreams, Family Relationships, Decisions, Love For Others, Trust in God, Truth

Summary: It’s weakening. Every time Archer enters the Dream he finds more and more rifts. He can’t even keep up with them any more. If he can’t repair the rifts, the Dream and Waking World will fuse together and pretty much destroy the entire world. But it’s more personal for Archer than just trying to repair rifts. He is a dreamtreader, he believes strongly in the Creeds that cause the world to work. But someone close to him, a classmate, once a friend he trusted, does not believe in the creeds and it is his work that is tearing these rifts. Archer tries and tries to get through to him, but Rigby isn’t listening. Finally the Master sends companions for Archer, giving him two more dreamtreaders to help him. One of those companions is Archer’s crazy-brilliant, downright genius little sister. The problem is that she makes for prime bait for the enemy and it comes down to a choice for Archer. Does he hold to the creeds he believes in so strongly or does he throw them away for the sake of his beloved sister?

Notes: Search For The Shadow Key is the second in the Dreamtreaders series. The premise of this series is the idea that dreams are essential to human beings, that there is a separate world, a dream world and there are creatures that live and exist only in this world. If someone enters it Lucid Dreaming it starts to tear a rift in the fabric of the dream. If this fabric is destroyed the two worlds will merge, causing things from the dream to exist in the waking world and destroy it. Dreamtreaders are three young people chosen from each generation to guard and protect the Dream. In this book Archer is continuing to wrestle with his personal ambitions and pride which cause others to get hurt. He has to act on his beliefs in the Creed and trust in it no matter what happens. The Creed is treated almost as Scripture with the level of respect Archer has for it. The only other spiritual element is a great conversation Archer has with his brother where he tells him to fight the terrible things happening with prayer and to trust God no matter what. Outside of that though, Archer relies on himself to accomplish his tasks. There really isn’t much for spiritual references.

Spiritual Content Recommendation Scale: 3/5

Reviewer: J:-)mi

2 Thessalonians 2:15 – So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

Thank you to the author and publishers and Book Look for providing me with a free review copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.