Time for a little dimension hopping. In Circles of Seven, book three of the Dragons In Our Midst series by Bryan Davis, Billy and Bonnie do just that. The book opens with them traveling to England where they meet up with some contacts of Professor Hamilton in order to continue working on fulfilling Merlin’s prophecies. Their next step is to traverse the seven circles and work on freeing the prisoners trapped inside. However, their attempts are being opposed by Morgan, an enemy of Merlin, who wishes for the eventual destruction of all dragons. Morgan is also trying to find a new physical host, Bonnie, for her spirit in order to leave the circles and exist in the physical realm for an extended length of time. As Billy and Bonnie travel through the circles they must stop Morgan without losing faith or compromising themselves, something harder to achieve than they thought it might be. Luckily, they have help in the form of Ashley, Walter, Professor Hamilton and others as they communicate through the use of Larry, Ashley’s AI sentient supercomputer in order to figure out what is actually going on in each realm or circle.
This book continues the series and the adventures of Billy, Bonnie and their friends but it also has a different feel to it than the previous two books. I say that because of one major change. In the previous book, The Candlestone, Billy worked hard to overcome his doubts about, well everything really. As such the Billy that appears in this book is more sure of himself and his role in the events taking place. This creates a different feel, not a bad one but different. There is also added complexity to this book due to the different realms that are present. In this case it adds complexity because of how it alters the plot development. Billy and Bonnie are traveling the seven circles, though they eventually get separated, and have little to no contact with the outside world while doing so. On the outside, in our world, Ashley and Walter are able to have limited knowledge of where Billy and Bonnie are at. They know which circle they are in and have an idea of what obstacles they are facing. At times, with the help of Larry the supercomputer, they are able to travel back and forth from the circles to help out or just send various objects back and forth to help. This creates a situation where some characters are aware of almost everything going on and some characters have extremely limited awareness of what is going on. By doing this it allows for a huge buildup of tension because some characters can see what is coming but are unable to prevent it while others are unable to see it but have to face it. It creates this really interesting multi-layered aspect to the story that is pretty cool. Very few stories do this and actually pull it off but this story definitely did a pretty good job with this aspect. However, there were times where I felt like not everything was being explained properly. Specifically, I felt like the creation of Larry the supercomputer AI was kind of glossed over. He was just there at the beginning of the book when he wasn’t there in the previous book. Considering the role that he ended up playing I felt like this was something that should have been expanded on just a little. Overall, a good book with an interesting plot so I am giving it four out of five stars.
This was a teen Christian fantasy so it would probably hold the most appeal to teens who enjoy the fantasy genre. Specifically, those who enjoy Christian fantasy though I don’t see why it wouldn’t hold some appeal for readers of the fantasy genre in general. As long as you don’t mind the Christian overtones it is a pretty good book. The book also deals a lot with dragons and King Arthur so it may also hold some appeal to readers who enjoy either of those themes. In terms of age range for the readers I would suggest that you stick to the young adult or teen age range. I am not sure how well it would appeal to older readers with the characters being in their teens, for a similar reason I am not sure if it would appeal to younger readers either. Either way, it is a good book and if you decide to try it feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.