Hollow Earth

By John Barrowman and Carole E. Barrowman

In this fresh and innovative middle grade fantasy, imagination matters most in a world where art can keep monsters trapped—or set them free.

Lots of twins have a special connection, but twelve-year-old Matt and Emily Calder can do way more than finish each other’s sentences. Together, they are able to bring art to life and enter paintings at will. Their extraordinary abilities are highly sought after, particularly by a secret group who want to access the terrors called Hollow Earth. All the demons, devils, and evil creatures ever imagined are trapped for eternity in the world of Hollow Earth—trapped unless special powers release them.

The twins flee from London to a remote island off the west coast of Scotland in hopes of escaping their pursuers and gaining the protection of their grandfather, who has powers of his own. But the villains will stop at nothing to find Hollow Earth and harness the powers within. With so much at stake, nowhere is safe—and survival might be a fantasy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aladdin
• Release date: Oct 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781442458550

John Barrowman

John Barrowman has worked in television, musical theatre, and film, and stars as Captain Jack Harkness in Torchwood and Doctor Who.

Book preview

PART ONE

ONE

THE MONASTERY OF ERA MINA

AUCHINMURN ISLE, WEST COAST OF SCOTLAND

MIDDLE AGES

The book the old monk was illuminating began with these words:

THIS Book is about the nature of beasts. Gaze upon these pages at your peril,

The old monk yawned, his chin dropped to his chest, and his eyes fluttered shut. The quill dropped from his fingers, leaving a trail of ink like tiny teardrops across the folio. He was working on one of the book’s later pages, a miniature of a majestic griffin with talons clutching an imposing capital G. As the old monk nodded off, the griffin leaped from its place at the corner of the page and darted across the parchment. In its haste to flee, the beast brushed its coarse wings across the old monk’s fingers.

The monk’s eyes snapped open. In an instant, he thumped his gnarled fist onto the griffin’s slashing tail, pinning the beast to the page. He glared at it. The griffin snorted angrily and scratched its talons deep into the thin vellum of the page. The monk shook off his exhaustion and focused his mind, and in a rush of color and light the griffin was once again gripping the G at the top of the page.

Glancing behind him, the old monk spotted the bare feet of his young apprentice poking out from under the wooden frame that held the drying skins to make parchment.

Something will have to be done, the monk thought.

When he was sure the image was settled on the page, the old monk crouched to retrieve his quill. He was angry with himself. He would have to be punished for this terrible lapse in concentration and go without his evening meal. He patted his soft, round belly. He’d survive the loss.

But the boy. What to do about the boy now, given what he’d witnessed? That loss would hurt. The old monk did not relish having to train another apprentice. He had neither the strength nor the inclination for such a task. Not only that, but this boy had already demonstrated a great deal of skill as a parchment maker, and was a natural at knowing how long to soak the skins in lime and how to carefully clean and scrape them. And, at such a young age, he was already an elegant calligrapher and a brilliant alchemist with inks. Between the two of them these past months, they’d almost completed the final pages for The Book of Beasts. The boy and his talents would be sorely missed.

The boy sensed that the old monk was debating his future. He could hear the weight of the monk’s ideas in his head, like a drumming deep inside his mind. He associated the sound with the monk because at its loudest, when the monk was concentrating hardest, the drumming was deep and full and round, much like the monk himself.

The boy’s mother was the only other person the boy could sense in his head: a feeling not unwanted, although often peculiar. Not because he missed her. Far from it. His mother and his brothers and sisters still lived in the village outside the monastery gates. But his mother’s echo in his head had helped him escape her wrath, warranted or not, many times. Quickly the boy lifted his pestle and mortar and finished crushing the iron salts and acorns for his next batch of ink.

The old monk straightened himself against his desk. What should he do? What if he were to fall asleep again while illuminating, only the next time his dozing was too sound? He didn’t dare think about the consequences of such a terrible slip. Only once before had he let such a thing happen, with tragic results. He’d been a young man and had not had the benefit of his training yet. In his nightmares, he could still hear the apprentice’s screams. Oh, and there had been so much blood.

No, something would definitely have to be done about the boy.

He stared at his apprentice across the workroom now in much the same manner as he had stared down the griffin.

But the boy was courageous and smart. He knew this was an important moment in his short life. He loved everything about the monastery and didn’t want to leave. He was genuinely fond of the old monk, with whom he’d worked since his father had given him to the service of the monks in return for grazing rights on a prime piece of church land outside the village.

The boy knew how much such a trade was worth to his family. It was worth everything to him, too. This was a time when men, women, and children believed in miracles and magic with equal faith. It was a time when kings and queens fought for their crowns with armadas and armies whose allegiance they bought with land and crops and even bigger armies. And it was a time when hope and happiness had everything to do with where you were born and who was protecting you.

Yes, indeed, the boy knew better than anything else that he had to stay with the old monk and remain part of this ancient holy order. So he did the only thing he knew how to do in the circumstances. He stood up and stared directly back at the old monk without flinching and with an equal measure of concentration.

The monk glared.

The boy’s heart was pounding in his chest. The drumming in his skull was so loud, it felt as if a vise was tightening across his ears. He was sure his head was going to burst. His nose started to bleed, dripping into the mortar he was gripping in his hands. Behind the monk, the boy could see the griffin’s tail thumping against the page. But still he held his gaze.

After what seemed—to the boy, anyway—to be forever, the vise around his skull loosened, the pulsing of the old monk’s thoughts stopped, and the boy thought he heard a sigh inside his head. The monk’s shoulders drooped, and he turned away. The boy let out his breath and wiped his sleeve across his nose.

Ah, thought the monk, I have neither the strength nor the inclination to challenge this boy’s fortitude. Something else will have to be done to ensure that he honors the monastery’s secrets.

He turned away, his focus back on the beast.

With great relief, the boy returned his attention to the pot and his mixtures. When he’d finished creating the ink, he filled the monk’s inkwell and stored the rest for another day. Then he turned to the goatskin stretched across the rack. Gently the boy ran the tips of his fingers across the surface, making sure the skin was drying smooth and thin enough to absorb the inks. He looked again at the old monk, his body draped across his tall desk, his quill dipping in and out of the inkwell. The monk’s concentration was so intense, the boy knew nothing would shift him until the final touches had been put to the page.

Soon the light was fading from the room, and the old monk could feel his mind drifting again. After cleaning the tip of his quill, he set it inside his leather pouch along with his other tools. Then he sealed the inkwell with a wax plug before covering the page he was illustrating with two thin layers of vellum. Lifting the pages, he set them on a rack inside the cabinet next to his desk, weighing down the corners with polished stones. The pages he’d been working on for the past month were similarly laid out across the cabinet’s broad shelves. Tomorrow, he’d begin the process of illuminating the final beast, the most terrifying of them all—the grendel.

The monk locked the cabinet, dropping the key into the pocket of his robes. Before closing the shutters, he peered out through the wide slits in the thick stone walls, stunned for a moment by the sight of an owl and one of its young lifting off from a nearby tree. A sign, the old monk thought. An omen, to be sure. Of good, he trusted.

Time for prayers, and then perhaps you and I should discuss the matter lingering before us.

Yes, master.

The boy echoed his master’s ritual, cleaning his tools, wrapping them in their soft leather pouches, and setting them on his workbench.

The old monk dampened the peat in the hearth and pulled on his fur cloak. Grabbing his cap and scarf from the floor, the boy tied his leather soles onto his feet and followed his master to the heavy oak door.

Solon, you would do well to forget what you believe you saw earlier. It was only a trick of your youthful imagination.

The boy stepped in front of the old monk and held the door for him.

Beg pardon, master, but weren’t it really a trick of yours?

TWO

THE NATIONAL GALLERY

LONDON

PRESENT DAY

Twelve-year-old twins Matt and Em Calder were sitting on a hard wooden bench. The gallery was quiet and not yet open to the public, but they were not happy. Their mom had made promises that morning about their plans for this sweltering day, and they didn’t remember having to stop to look at paintings being one of them. Setting their backpacks on the floor in front of them, the twins glared at their mother.

Behave yourselves, Sandie warned. "Do not leave this bench. Do not even think about it. I mean it. I’ll only be gone ten minutes at the most. I’ll be right over there."

She pointed to the tall, yellow-haired man in a dark suit holding a stack of books in his arms. The man dipped his head toward them in his usual acknowledgment. Em smiled politely, but Matt turned away, more interested in a woman wheeling a cart with a wooden crate the size and shape of a painting strapped to it through the next gallery. A museum guard followed close behind her. At the elevator, the guard swiped a key card across the security pad. The doors opened. Dismissing the guard’s help with a wave of her hand, the woman eased the cart into the elevator. The guard backed away, but as the doors were closing he changed his mind, shoved his foot between them, and ducked inside with the woman and the painting.

Matt! Are you even listening to me?

Matt slumped on the bench, shoving his sister to the edge as he did so.

This is a lovely painting to look at while you wait, Sandie went on. It’s by Georges Seurat. He often painted using tiny dots instead of brushstrokes.

The twins frowned at her. In unison.

We know, said Em.

Sandie soldiered on. I appreciate this isn’t what we’d got planned, but I need to take care of some business with— She cut herself off mid-sentence and changed tack. How about when I’m finished with this meeting, we go swimming just like the boy in the painting? She put her leather messenger bag over her shoulder. What do you say? Deal?

Deal, said Em, who, in these situations at least, was always the first to agree.

Matt shrugged. Whatever.

They watched their mom walk over to the yellow-haired man and settle on a similar bench in the next gallery. The man leaned close to their mother as if about to share a secret with her; in response, Sandie flipped open the sketchbook she always carried, handing the man a sheet of paper she had tucked into one of the pages. Boring. Turning her attention back to the painting, Em leaned forward and squinted hard, trying to see all the dots without leaving the bench, while Matt emptied his backpack into the space between them—the pens, chalk, and charcoal he always carried in a bashed cookie tin, his iPod, earbuds, two Captain America comics, assorted candy wrappers, a pack of bubble gum, an empty Coke can, and a sketch pad. Tearing a sheet of paper from the pad, he handed Em a pen. She shook her head.

Swimming would be a lot of fun, he said. No one’s paying any attention to us.

Em accepted the pen, and they began to draw. The next thing the twins knew, they were in the painting, splashing in the cool, blue water of the River Seine with a boy in a red hat. He said his name was Pierre and spoke to them in French. The twins understood. He said he had only a few minutes to bathe before he had to get back to his work.

Is that your dog? Matt asked Pierre, worried that the dog would have nowhere to go when Pierre returned to his job. But Pierre didn’t answer the question, so Matt gave up and began splashing water onto the men lounging on the bank. They ignored him. Matt floated on his back for a while. He could feel Em splashing next to him. He looked up at the sky, but it wasn’t there, and he thought he knew why—and then he and Em were suddenly sopping wet and lying in a big puddle on the floor in front of the painting in the National Gallery. Two very angry guards were rushing toward them with Sandie close on their heels. The yellow-haired man was gone. Quickly gathering up the twins’ things, Sandie apologized to the guards. I’m so sorry. They must have dumped their bottles of water on each other. It is really warm today.

She glared at the twins. All I asked was ten minutes. Ten minutes! She yanked both of them upright. Oh God, you’ve no idea what you’ve done.

Feeling some sympathy for the twins, one of the guards told them that since the museum was not yet open to the general public for the day, no real harm was done. The staff could get the mess cleaned up quickly before anyone else came through. He wasn’t planning to take any chances though, and quickly escorted the three of them outside to the morning heat of Trafalgar Square.

*   *   *

A member of the National Gallery’s cleaning staff was called to the Postimpressionist room, where she soaked up the water with her mop. She had to smile to herself. Her own boys might have done much worse than a water fight if it had been them sitting there feeling hot and bored.

As she was wringing her mop out into the bucket, something on the floor under the bench caught her eye. Reaching down, she snagged a folded sheet of paper torn from a drawing pad. The drawing had to belong to one of those children because she’d cleaned this particular gallery earlier that morning and she knew she hadn’t missed a thing.

Unfolding the paper, she was surprised to see a recognizable sketch of Bathers at Asnières. There was something off in the dots of color around the boy in the red hat, the men languishing on the shore were distorted in their dimensions, and the little brown dog had a kind of smudged-sausage look to him, but it was a very good copy indeed.

She glanced at the sketch one more time. The water of the Seine was dashed in thick blue strokes across the bottom of the paper, but the top half of the drawing was a complete blank.

No sky.

She gathered up her mop and bucket, rolled her cart toward the exit, and crumpled the paper into a ball. On her way out of the gallery, she chucked it into a nearby bin.

She could have sworn she heard a splash.

THREE

Arthur Summers couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed. When Sandie, the twins’ mother, had sprinted across the gallery to her children, Arthur had moved with haste in the other direction. At the staff elevator, he swiped his key card on the security pad. The elevator doors opened immediately, and he darted inside, pressing the button to the basement three, four times, hoping more jabs would speed up his descent.

His pulse was racing. Sweat was beading under his shirt, and his straw-blond hair felt damp with perspiration. He’d known the twins since they were toddlers. He was supposed to monitor their development and ensure the Society heard of any evolution in their powers before the Council of Guardians did. But he’d never imagined they would reach this level while the children were still so young. It—changed things.

He squeezed out before the doors had fully opened and quickly headed for the National Gallery’s restoration lab. To most employees at the National, this floor was nicknamed the morgue because it had been created from the catacombs that ran beneath Charing Cross Road from the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Arthur had always thought the enormous basement lab should really have been called purgatory because, although it was the place where paintings were resurrected to new life, working down here always felt like punishment. Unfortunately, no one at the National cared what Arthur thought, which was why he was so successful at keeping his secrets.

At the lab doors, Arthur used his key card again. This time he waited for the pad to flip open and reveal a fingerprint sensor. When it did, he wiped his sweating thumb across his trousers before pressing it to the pad.

The doors slid open with a hiss, and he stepped into an enclosed glass chamber, an anteroom, where he waited for the first doors to seal and the air to be calibrated before a second set of doors opened.

Just as the first doors locked, Arthur saw a cloaked and hooded person move from the stairwell and into the shadows of the hallway. When the second set of doors slid open, Arthur’s heart was pounding so fast, he thought he might hyperventilate.

He dashed into his purgatory, the doors sealing behind him. The figure wouldn’t follow. It couldn’t. Could it?

The lab was the size of a school gym. Despite the high-tech equipment spread around the room—portable imaging machines, scanners, microscopes, copiers, and computers with huge flat-screen monitors—the worktables of the men and women who restored and repaired paintings in this room were covered in the more traditional media of paintbrushes and palettes. Row upon row of easels stood like sentinels against the walls. As Arthur marched down the aisle bisecting the room, he noticed a row of paintings being readied for the exhibition he was curating: The Horror in Art.

When Arthur was about ten steps from his office door, the lights went out. Cursing under his breath, hands trembling, he fished a penlight from his inside pocket and continued onward, glancing back now and again.

He stopped short at the last painting in the room, his breath catching in his throat.

Despite the relevance of the image, Arthur had most certainly not requested Witch with Changeling Child for his exhibition. In the painting, only the witch’s large pocked nose was visible from the shadows of a shabby woolen shawl. Seated on her bony lap was a dwarfish demon child with a misshapen head; a bulbous nose; pale, waxy skin; and eyes like tiny yellow marbles sunk into its fleshy forehead.

What disturbed Arthur even more than the repulsive subject matter was the painting’s history. It had been linked to a number of grisly deaths that had occurred at the gallery when the painting had first been exhibited to the public. As a result, Witch with Changeling Child was said to be cursed and had been locked in storage, never to be displayed again.

Until now. Who had put it here?

Arthur swept his penlight across the witch’s gnarled hands and up and over to the horrible creature perched on her lap. When he reached the changeling’s face with his penlight, he froze in terror. He knew it wasn’t his imagination.

The dwarfish demon was grinning at him.

FOUR

The twins had not been in a taxi in ages—they always traveled on the Tube with their mom. But as soon as the security guard had hustled them from the National Gallery and out onto Trafalgar Square, Sandie hurried them into a taxi. Giving the driver their address, she settled herself on one of the flip-down seats facing the twins. She was so angry with them, she was almost speechless.

"Seat belts fastened. Right now."

Why are you so mad? asked Matt. We didn’t do anything wrong.

You know the rules! You know that what you did was dangerous.

Your rules, not ours! Matt shouted back.

We’re sorry, Mom. We didn’t mean to make you angry, Em interjected before the two of them started fighting for real. Matt and their mom seemed to be doing more and more of that lately, ever since their dad had missed another of their birthdays without a call or an e-mail. With every passing year, Matt was becoming more and more convinced that their mom had driven their dad away. Em could hardly remember what their dad looked like. She wasn’t sure she missed him at all.

Really, Mom, continued Em. We’re not stupid. We know we’re not supposed to draw in public. But we were so hot. We won’t do it again. Promise.

Sandie sighed. Sometimes her terror made her lose control. She patted Em’s leg. I know you’re not stupid. Far from it.

She tried to ruffle Matt’s hair. He pulled away and slouched against the seat. It’s just that you’re getting older, and things are becoming complicated—

We were hot and wanted to go swimming, Matt snapped. And you promised no more meetings. Two days in a row you’ve dragged us to that stupid gallery.

Sandie leaned forward, fear tightening the knot already in her stomach. "Are you saying you knew you were putting yourselves into the painting? She turned to Em. Please tell me you’ve never done that before."

Don’t say a word, Em.

Em hesitated as Matt’s words echoed in her head. We didn’t know we could do that—until it happened with a painting yesterday, she said at last.

The color drained from Sandie’s face. Things were worse than she had thought. Much worse. What painting?

Be quiet, Em!

A painting . . . of Roman ruins. It was easy to copy. Seeing the sudden panic in her mom’s eyes, Em blurted, No one saw us. Honest. We were careful, Mom. I promise we were.

Shut up, Em, or I’ll pound you.

I don’t like telling lies . . . and you couldn’t pound me if you tried.

Em whacked Matt across his chest with her backpack. He yelped, reached across the seat, and swatted his sister back.

Emily Anne Calder! What was that for?

Not for the first time, Sandie sensed something strange going on between her son and

Reviews for Hollow Earth

[stiina.sild · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was a good book, but I was expecting so much more. So my rating is maybe lower than it should be, but thats how I feel. And I am going to read the sequels also when I get my hands on them (probably with higher ratings because I have lower expectations)

[mmoj_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had to read a book by a celebrity and a middle grade novel and had Hollow Earth on my TBR list so decided to combine these two challenges and move Hollow Earth up and read it for the challenges.

I enjoyed this book more than I thought, I chose it for the premise of people who can manipulate their imagination to make things come to life (don't we all imagine that as kids?) but was a little hesitant with it being co-written by a celebrity. I wondered if it was just a ploy to cash on on Mr. Barrowman's popularity as an actor. I was wrong. He and his sister can really write.

If you aren't fond of middle school fiction (or your not fond of middle school students) you may want to stay away from this book as one of the main characters, Matt is very typical of a 13-year old boy who has some major family issues and blames is mom - being a complete brat to her. He's also angry and frustrated (usually that means a sad boy or man who can't admit he's in pain) and that tends to come out in ill-thought out actions.

Em and Matt are twins who have extraordinary powers that are growing. They don't really know what they are or what they can do and their mom isn't telling them anything. Something happens though that makes her bring them to their grandfather, a man they don't remember meeting. Shortly after they arrive their mom disappears and their grandfather is severely hurt.

This is an easy (for an adult) and fast book that does a great job of introducing a new trilogy without leaving one of those awful cliffhangers. You want to read more but not because there's no ending to this book. I'll be reading more and will be buying copies of the series for my grandkids.

[ed9pendragon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A good forty or more years ago we visited Great Cumbrae for the first and so far only time. It was winter, the New Year in fact, we were entirely inappropriately dressed (loons, for heaven’s sake!), we had meant to take the ferry to Arran but had come to the wrong port, and we were young and inexperienced. There was nothing to do but walk round the island (it kept us warm, at least!) and catch the ferry back to Largs, so that’s what we did. So it was a bit of a shock recently to pick up the Barrowmans’ book Hollow Earth and discover that the island of Auchinmurn in the story was recognisably Great Cumbrae by another name (called after their Scottish grandmother, we are told). True, some of the geography was changed, even the orientation, but John Barrowman, who was born in Glasgow, and his older sister Carole Emily will both have had strong childhood memories of the island (no doubt from those same early seventies) and will have tried to infuse that excitement into the writing of Hollow Earth.To a large extent I was impressed by this tale of twins, Matt and Emily, who have genetically acquired the abilities to not only communicate to each other telepathically but also to animate images, both ones they have sketched and then increasingly those merely envisioned. Together with their new deaf friend Zach they fight to understand and counteract the power struggles that the adults round them are waging in order to further dangerous and mysterious ends. The action, which begins in London, moves swiftly to the two small islands in the Firth of Clyde, and after a rather confusing start we are pitched into a sequence of nightmarish events. There is a resolution, of sorts, but there are also many loose threads which you sense will be followed in subsequent volumes.I’ve seen mentioned the inevitable comparisons with the Harry Potter books, and of course there is magic, a trio of close-knit youngsters, an avuncular Dumbledore figure and shadowy figures who mean harm. But a much closer parallel will be with the Famous Five books of Enid Blyton, acknowledged as among the Barrowmans’ favourite childhood reading: all that messing around in boats, secret passages, old houses, mysterious adults and island adventures. Another aspect of the Famous Five books that seems to have also leached into the events of Hollow Earth is the youngsters’ relative freedom to do what they choose and go where they please, a feature of British life in the fifties but less common in these days when concern over ‘stranger danger’ looms larger. Despite the obvious perils that emanate from both the natural and the supernatural worlds, the adults responsible for the trio seem increasingly irresponsible and on occasions inexplicably unconcerned about their safety which, as a reader, I found alarming and unconvincing.At the inconclusive conclusion of the book a surprisingly large number of adults have been badly injured or have disappeared, so it is clear that a sequel or sequels are planned; in fact, the Hollow Earth of the title is only alluded to a few times during the course of the story, and we are left expecting to hear more in due course. I’ll probably read any follow-up for the sake of completeness though not with as much enthusiasm as I started this; the narrative was exciting enough but I was not over-impressed by character motivation. Still, there was a lot of background detail to get one’s teeth into, especially the references to art history and art works (the related website for this book is particularly informative), and one has to admire the sheer inventiveness that melds together the authors’ invention. What with their backgrounds (John Barrowman from Doctor Who and Torchwood and Carole as an English professor) that’s only to be expected of course!

[heartbreakdx · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like many people, I picked up this book because it had John Barrowman's name on it. However, I love the way his mind works, his and his sister. This book was so different and interesting. The twins are engaging, the story is never boring, and I couldn't put the book down. Now I have to get my hands on the sequel!

[ritapt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

i liked it. the characters are real and geninue. i can see the little rascals. it was fast paced and exciting. i wish some books for adults had as much excite as this one did. it was a good length and i can't wait to read the next installment.

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Built from art and adventure, and full of fantasy and magic, this is one of those YA fantasies that will have you searching out the sequel moments after you've read it. The Barrowmans have created such engaging characters, and such an intriguing and fully built world, that it's difficult to believe this is only the first book in the series.Centered on twins with a mysterious set of parents and abilities they're still learning to maneuver, the book takes on a compelling landscape, full with questions regarding responsibility and loyalty. Yet, there's such depth--to both the story and the ideas involved--that there's no doubt the Hollow Earth series will entrance adults just so much as it will appeal to young readers.I don't remember a first fantasy book ever flowing so fluidly and clearly to build a wholly new understanding of the world, and this is certainly my new favorite YA series. Absolutely wonderful.

[beammey · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Yeah. I'm one of those people that read the book because of 'Captain Jack' himself. The book was okay. It wasn't bad by any means and some parts had me on the edge of my seat, but I feel like it was what I was expecting and didn't have a lot of surprise twists and turns. Like I said, that's not to say it was a bad story, because it isn't. I've just seen it all before. I would still recommend this book to people that might find it interesting. Everyone is different and I see a lot of people loved it =). 3.5 out of 5 stars.

[thehidingspot · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I picked up Hollow Earth because I loved the cover. Upon closer inspection, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it features twins... to be more exact, magic wielding twins who can manipulate artwork. I wasn't aware until after I'd read the novel (and absolutely adored it) that the half of the brother-sister author duo, John Barrowman, is well-known among Dr. Who and Torchwood fans from his role as Captain Jack Harkness. The remaining half of this writing team, Carole E. Barrowman, may also be familiar, as she has authored five other book with John before Hollow Earth. This book reminded me, in a very good way, of Lisa McMann's The Unwanteds. Both books focus on creativity and art as a means to combat dark forces and feature twins. Though the two books do have these themes in common, the execution and characters in Hollow Earth are unique... I never felt myself confusing details or characters and I wasn't left with the impression that I'd read the story before.Hollow Earth is nearly 400 pages long, but is an extremely quick read. The action was non-stop and the details and explanations about the magical gift the twins share never bogged down the pace of the novel. The title of the novel refers to the place where the dark, evil creatures of the world are banished, a place that few can access. Among those that have the ability to open Hollow Earth are, of course, the twins, making them a target for those who would use their power for their own nefarious gain. The stakes are high for Matt and Emily Calder: they must learn how to control and use their powers for good before they're forced to use them for evil.I highly recommend Hollow Earth to both MG and YA readers. It's a quick, satisfying read that left me anxious for book two, Bone Quill.

[ninacaramelita · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Did the name John Barrowman sound familiar to you? Then you might know him from Doctor Who, Torchwood or Arrow!? He must have a wicked imagination, I thought. And when I found out he wrote this book with his sister Carole, who happens to be a teacher (English & Creative writing), it had to work, right?! Hollow Earth - "a place where all the devils, demons and monsters ever imagined lie trapped for eternity", starts at the the monastery of Era Mina on Auchinmurn Isle, where an old monk was illuminating The Book of Beasts. You are just about to enjoy it all and we get sucked to present time and meet the twins Matt and Em. They are one of a kind. Not only do they animate their imagination through drawing them, but they are also the offsprings of an Animare and a Guardian – which ancient laws had forbidden. As they get older, their powers grow with them and things get complicated. With their mom, they flee London and find a safer haven in their granddad’s abbey, on a remote Scottish island.Although the passion for art’s intriguing, It’s at this point I started to wonder whether my expectations had been too high. I also wished we got more of an insight of what was going on at the abbey during the Middle Ages. Then I mean, a bit more than one (rather short) chapter at the beginning of each of the 4 parts. But then the pace picked up, it got a lot more exciting and the craziest things happen and suddenly turned in such a cliffhanger, that I didn’t want to lay the book down anymore!Loved the concept of Animare & Guardians, characters are well-developed (their backgrounds included), easy to visualize and get sucked into the story etc etc. The loose ends and unanswered questions, only make me long for more!

[deweyever · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fast-paced fantasy adventure set in Scotland. Twins struggle with the danger brought by their extraordinary power: the ability to bring drawings to life and to enter into a drawing. Some people will stop at nothing to get access to their abilities. Plot twists and treachery... This is obviously the first in a series.

[samaside · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Title: Hollow EarthAuthor: John and Carole E. BarrowmanRelease Date: July 9, 2013Publisher: AladdinSource: Edelweiss DRCGenre(s): Middle Grade Fiction, Middle Grade Fantasy, YA Fiction, YA FantasyRating: ★★★☆☆Review Spoilers: LowGoodReads | AmazonHollow Earth is our first introduction to the world developed by John Barrowman and his sister, Carole. As they’ve mentioned time and time again in interviews, the twins Em and Matt are based a lot on themselves and their own relationship. Which is probably why the two characters’ relationship feels so authentic. That’s one of the good things about having siblings writing a book about siblings. They know the sort of things that siblings get up to and what not.In the fantasy world the Barrowman siblings create, there are secret societies and fantastical powers. The twins are what are known as ‘animare’ and can animate things merely by thinking about them. From drawing themselves into paintings in the National Gallery to drawing rock a formation into living, lumbering Tyrannosaurs Rex, the twins’ powers are very real and very powerful. And also potentially dangerous when they cannot control them. Considering they are twelve years old there are plenty of times like that. Like any children with a particular gift t hey need training. But a secretive society might rather bind their powers entirely.And so Matt, Em, and their mother seek refugee with the twins’ grandfather in Scotland where they join a group of animare and ‘Guardians’ living together. The twins begin to hone their talents and though they may have been far more familiar with the grandeur of London city life they take to the parochial Scottish life well enough. I liked the characters that were introduced – particularly Zach. A deaf teenager whose thrown into a world where he’s going to be a Guardian and be responsible for protecting someone else? And no one questions his ability to do that? That’s something I can appreciate as someone with a hearing disability.Unfortunately for the story to move along life at their grandfather’s can’t remain that simple for long and eventually the twins are forced to take matters into their own hands to protect themselves, their mother, their grandfather, and their little Scottish island home. It’s really fun to see the challenges that the twins need to face and the way that they react to them – often as you would expect from twelve year olds.

[book_zone · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Usually when a celeb writes a book there is something of a fanfare but if there was a lot of hype running up to the release of this book then I missed it all. I only heard about it through my mother-in-law who mentioned that she has see John Barrowman talking about it in a TV interview. On the very next day we had several pupils ask if we were going to be buying it for the library. Feeling something of a failure I did a little online digging and contacted its publisher, Buster Books, who very kindly sent me a copy to review.

I like John Barrowman. He always comes across as a really nice (if somewhat manic) guy when I watch him interviewed on TV, and I loved his Captain Jack character in Doctor Who and Torchwood (although like many others I was disappointed with Miracle Day). I had high hopes for this book being more than just another celebrity-cashes-in-on-the-children's-book-market as my research showed me that a) it was a product of John's crazy imagination and b) Carole E. Barrowman, the book's co-author has been teaching English and Creative Writing for more than twenty years and is also a journalist. I am happy to report that I was not disappointed - in fact, I read it in a single sitting.

Hollow Earth tells the story of twins Matt and Emily Calder, a pair of children who have an incredible power - they can make art come to life. Through the power of their imaginations, anything they draw will come into being, and they can also enter paintings or make/allow others to enter paintings. They are not the first to possess these abilities - they are the latest in a long history of equally gifted people known as Animare - but they could potentially be the most powerful Animare of all time. The reason for this is that their mother is an Animare, and their long-missing father a Guardian (people tasked with protecting Animare and creating a psychic bond that helps them keep their powers under control). Ancient laws forbid the two from ever having children together, but sometimes ancient laws are broken (i.e. the twins' parents were a little but naughty). Now that the twins are approaching their teens their powers seem to be growing, and of course someone notices, tells someone else, and before we know it the twins and their mother, Sandie, are having to escape from London for the sanctuary of their grandfather's Abbey stronghold, on a small Scottish island.

I gather that some reviewers have started to suggest that this could be the new Harry Potter. It isn't - when will people realise that there will never be another Harry Potter? However, when Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was first published (before all the hype and success) reviewers praised it for being a magical story about good versus evil. And that is exactly what Hollow Earth is. To compare any book using Rowling's series as the yardstick is unfair, and it makes my blood boil when reviewers do this. If Harry Potter had never existed we would be comparing Hollow Earth to the likes of Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising books, or the many books of the late, great Diana Wynne Jones, and I believe it would stand up pretty well in this respect.

One thing that really jumped out at me from the pages of Hollow Earth is just how passionate the Barrowman's are about art. From when we first meet the twins, sitting in the National Gallery in front of Georges Seurat's Bathers at Asnières waiting impatiently for their mother, to quotes by William Blake and a cheeky revelation about Vincent Van Gogh, art is more than just a bystander in this story. The authors' love of art resonates throughout the story, and I would imagine that it will have huge appeal to any young person who shares this fascination with painting and drawing. I also feel that it will encourage many more children to explore the arts for themselves.

This book is not perfect though. I understand that the Barrowman's spent the early parts of their lives living in Scotland (hence the story's setting, I am guessing), but the bulk of their lives have been spent in the USA. Unfortunately this has led to more than a handful of Americanisms appearing in their writing. I'm sorry, but when a story is set in Britain with British characters I personally become something of a snob and prefer 'proper' English. Others may totally disagree with me, including perhaps many of this book's target audience. Secondly, the whole Hollow Earth thing. The title refers to "a place where all the devils, demons and monsters ever imagined lie trapped for eternity". And yet, this 'place' is not as integral a part of the story as I had expected/hoped for. I have managed to track down the interview that John Barrowman did on This Morning, and he explains that this is the first in (hopefully) a trilogy. If this is so then he and his sister have done a perfectly good job of establishing the characters, their back-stories and the concept of the Animare and their Guardians, but in the second instalment I am fully expecting there to be much more about this mythical Hollow Earth 'place'. Please.

As the first in a series, the ending of Hollow Earth leaves us with a number of loose ends. However, it does not leave us dangling with a nasty cliffhanger (thank you Barrowmans), and the story is brought to a satisfying conclusion. I don't think it will be to everyone's taste, but what book is? After all, I know a number of kids and adults who really cannot stand Harry Potter. However, if your 10 child loves stories full of ancient magic and mystery then it is well worth adding Hollow Earth to their collection.