This book tells the story of a teenage girl called Peta and her quest to find her war-hero father who went missing two years previously. It starts on the day of her mother's second wedding to one of her Dad's ex-army colleagues, everyone except Peta believes that her father was killed by a bomb whilst working in Baghdad. While she is sitting in the church Peta receives a phone call with a mysterious message which leads her on a mission to discover the whereabouts of her Dad.
A number of strange events leave Peta in an ancient castle on an island off Italy, owned by an evil billionaire. I don't want to give away too much of the plot so I won't mention any more details, but the story is very exciting, moves at a good pace and kept me entertained.
As the story progresses, Peta's thoughts and feelings towards her Dad change in an interesting way. At the beginning she completely idolises her father and she resents her mother for believing that he is dead and for re-marrying so soon. As the story develops however, she realises that her father was not such a great father because he was more interested in his dangerous adventures than his family. I thought the author showed this change very well in the way she wrote about Peta. The other thing the author did in this book was raise the issue of domestic slavery in modern times. I thought it was interesting that she set the story in Italy where the ancient Romans had slaves, but she showed that domestic slavery still exists today which I had not been aware of.
I think this book comes under the Young Adult section, but I noticed that an older reviewer on here did not find it as interesting as I did. I think that it is probably best suited to 11/12 year olds rather than older teenagers. I really enjoyed it, the story held my interest throughout and it was very well written.
• Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop.
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