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I spent 20 years as a teacher of French, Latin and Classical studies, before a change of career led me to writing children's fiction. Originally from the UK, I now live in France with my husband and our beautiful Tonkinese cat.
Shadows from the Past is a series of time-travel adventures, featuring 3 children and a rather special Tonkinese cat - the incomparable Maximus Lancelot to give him his full name. I'm currently working on the eighteenth book, The Shadow of the Slave Ship. The full-length books are also accompanied by some shorter stories, Max's Adventures, all of which see the talking feline hero, Max, undertaking solo missions in the past.
As I take my young readers on a magical mystery tour through the past, I'm hoping that my love of history, myth and legend will rub off on them too.
Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
The Shadow of the Trojan Horse: Shadows From the Past, Book Three is a time-travel adventure fantasy for children and preteens written by Wendy Leighton-Porter. Both Jemima Lancelot and her twin brother, Joe, thought they heard their mother wishing them a happy birthday as they were waking up, but the feeling passed quickly as they both fully awakened. It was their eleventh birthday, and the first one they would be celebrating without their mom and dad, who had mysteriously disappeared earlier that year. The twins were staying with their Uncle Richard, an archaeologist, who had a special birthday celebration planned for them and their friend, Charlie. Uncle Richard gave Jemima a bracelet with a golden apple charm hanging from it and a book about ancient Troy. There was a Greek word inscribed on the apple charm. Joe got the Xbox 360 he had been longing for, along with a game cartridge: Warriors of Ancient Troy. These were the perfect, if somewhat prophetic gifts for the time-traveling twins. The twins, Charlie, and Max, Jemima's cat, had already traveled to Atlantis and ancient Crete in their quest to find the twins' parents, who were trapped somewhere in the past. Perhaps this time, the adventurers would discover their mom and dad in ancient Troy.
Wendy Leighton-Porter's time-travel adventure fantasy for children, The Shadow of the Trojan Horse: Shadows From the Past, Book Three, is a fascinating and action-packed historical fiction novel that finds Jemima, Joe, Charlie, and Max in Troy in the final days of the endless conflict between the Trojans and the Greeks. While this is the third book in the Shadows From the Past series, the author provides enough background information to allow this volume to be read on its own. That being said, I'm fairly sure that anyone else who reads this novel will be as interested in reading the first two volumes as I am. The Shadow of the Trojan Horse educates as it entertains, and I loved watching as the time-travelers interacted with Cassandra and the other Trojans, and worked with them to try to find an alternative solution to their plight. Along the way, Joe, Charlie, and Jemima get an up close and personal look at war: the brutality and blood, and the inevitable loss of life, and find it very different than they previously had thought, based on games, shows and books. The Shadow of the Trojan Horse: Shadows From the Past, Book Three has a grand plot and is beautifully written, and it's most highly recommended.
