‘Expect the unexpected,’ it says on the back of the book and that is certainly true. Inside these pages you will find a plot with lots of twists and turns and a vast cast of characters that include elves and goblins, a penguin that flies and various other creatures as well as humans. Add to that a time element as Robby and Chris seek to save Stephen, Chris’ brother, before time runs out and you have a book guaranteed to have you turning the pages.

If you liked A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle I suggest you will also like Many-Coloured Realm. Not that is similar in plot but it does contain the same complexity of language and ideas as L’Engle’s work and encompasses various other disciplines like poetry and maths. I’ve read several of Anne’s nonfiction books like The Singing Silence, The Winging Word and The Listening Land, and I have always been amazed at her breadth of knowledge and the amount of research that goes into them. In this, Many-Coloured Realm is no different. It contains faint echoes of some of the themes raised in those books. It is written in a numerical literary style but that’s something you’re not conscious of as a reader because you are too involved in the story.

The prologue plunges the reader right into action from a previous time before transporting the reader back to the present and Robby and the poetry project Robby, Neil and Stephen were meant to be working on. But then the police arrive because Stephen has gone missing.

Where could he be? And does his disappearance have anything to do with the argument between Stephen and Neil over the bezoar ring. That evening Robby hears someone call her name. ‘Robby stared at the dancing figure. It had wings.’

Robby tries to follow Neil after he tells her he comes from,’ the other side of yesterday.’ That’s when she finds herself, along with Stephen’s brother Chris who followed her, in a strange place filled with strange characters and the clock ticking to save Stephen who has a limited amount of air in the spherical immurement where he is imprisoned. Robby and Chris have an hour to find a way to save Stephen. After that they have then to find their way back home. The significance of the prologue becomes evident as the story unfolds.

Because of the complexity of the plot and the large cast of characters, this is a book I suspect that having read it once, you will want to go back and read again to gain full benefit and to pick up all those little details and nuances you missed first time round. This book will appeal to thoughtful fantasy readers.

The only thing I would have liked was a list of the characters I could have referred to as other fantasy books often have. It would help when there are unfamiliar names, like Artemys, Thuric, Tamarlane, Avignerne, Aquitaine, and Caesarea, just to mention a few.

Wombat Books are to be congratulated on another interesting addition to their eclectic range