The Three Secret Cities

Wow what a thrilling ride. I'm so glad I picked this up right after finishing The Four Legendary Kingdoms, because this helped me remember all the juicy tidbits before diving into another Jack West Jr story. This book gave me all the feels that I first felt when I discovered The Seven Ancient Wonders but it was also very emotional and exciting at the same.

The best part of this book is that the author decides to go back to the original formula of telling Jack's story - a globetrotting adventure with a looming deadline. It picks up right after the ending of The Four Legendary Kingdoms and gives no time for Jack to rest before he is off to save the world again. There is a lot of hopping between places - New York to London, Italy to Greece, Venice to Venezuela and many many more. Our favorite crew gets separated into teams to discover the three secret cities, so we don't see all of them together much. Reilly also manages to device some very new torture methods we haven't seen before and I just want to tip off my hat to his imagination. We get the usual story of figuring out the locations of the secret cities, finding the immortal weapons, some daring escapes and puzzling through booby trapped avenues while racing against time to perform another ancient sacrificial ritual to save the world.

What makes this book extra special is the emotional pull throughout. We see some beautiful moments between Jack and Lily, Alby, Zoe and even Nobody and the other members of the crew. After this feeling of joy, the author decides that we have been happy enough and we are shocked to our core by the deaths of some key characters and I just couldn't believe that they happened. It just made the story all the more real and every scene felt like the harbinger of more death. Coming to the action side of it, we have one of the most inventive rescue by a beloved character from Scarecrow and that scene just delighted the Reilly fan in me. As always, the author manages to interweave the story of many myths and legends but I absolutely loved the way he utilized the symbolism of Medusa's curse and how he turned the legend of the Knights of the Round Table on its head. And that ENDING..... it almost killed me and then gave me just enough hope to hang on to.

This book is a dream for any adrenaline junkie reader and fans of Jack West Jr and I promise, you will be thrilled on every page. And if you haven't read this series, but love a jet setting adventure, a relentless hero, lots of mythology and the end of the world looming - what are you waiting for... Just go ahead and start this series from the beginning. As for me, it's going to be a long wait till 2020.

Yet Another Wild Ride! At this point, if you're following these books you're going to keep reading them. If you haven't picked them up yet, go back to 7 Deadly Wonders and start the series from there - there is so much to get caught up on before picking this book up. (Though in fairness, you can largely follow this particular book just from reading 4 Legendary Kingdoms first.) HOWEVER, that “shocking ending”... wasn't, at least not for me. Until the final few words. And now I am intrigued and looking forward to the 2 __ ___ with baited breath!

Read this only because I have begun the journey with Jack all the way back as the ancient wonders. Matthew is clearly struggling here. The pack remains hectic and the imagination of the ancient history is still up there. But the story line is now really stretched thin and the writing is pretty amateur. The entry of the dark Knight is the only real value. I wish Reilly would go back to his elaborate trap systems which were really interesting and give the high octane last minute stunts a break. But in the end I guess I will finish the next two books when they are out. Onwards