Beneath the Sugar Sky returns to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. At this magical boarding school, children who have experienced fantasy adventures are reintroduced to the “real” world.

Sumi died years before her prophesied daughter Rini could be born. Rini was born anyway, and now she’s trying to bring her mother back from a world without magic.

Note: This is a direct sequel to EVERY HEART A DOORWAY.

Review –I want my door the way a fish wants water.

I want to believe that somewhere I could belong – a world with endless books to read and catalog and stroke and love. A world where a quiet girl with antiquated ideas about propriety and rules doesn’t have to force herself to be somewhat “normal” for the sake of others.

The Wayward Children series has, in so many ways, improved my life. From Nancy’s joy in the quiet to Kade’s contentment being where can be himself, from Christopher’s unabashed love of the dancing dead to Sumi’s hyper Nonsense.

These books aren’t published linearly. DOWN AMONG THE STICKS AND STONES (DATSAB) takes place before EVERY HEART A DOORWAY (EHAD) while BENEATH THE SUGAR SKY (BTSS) is a direct continuation of EHAD.

I’m not convinced that you should read them linearly, since time really does mean nothing but arbitrary rules created to make sense of the world. The world is as the world is, knowing when something happened doesn’t mean its more important then what comes after.

Knowing how Jack & Jill wound up as they were in EHAD does not change the fact EHAD was Nancy’s book. Just as the reappearance of Kade, Christopher, Nancy and Sumi in BTSS doesn’t make this any less Rini’s book.

These aren’t telling the story of how point A got to point B, they’re telling the story of how these kids found where they belong.

Rini knew her place in the larger fabric of Time and Space. BTSS wasn’t about her finding it – it was about her fighting to keep it in a way that others could not. They came from the real world, they had to justify to whatever power sent them in the first place why their birth world was not their home. All Rini had to do was bring her mom back from the dead so she could marry her dad and have Rini.

That’s hella lot simpler honestly.

If EHAD was a mystery wrapped up in a young girl’s struggle to figure out what was right for her, and DATSAB was a gothic wrapped up in two sisters separating their identity from how they were perceived and they were, this book is about the contradictory nature of “normal” being conflated with fact.

I was happy to see Nancy, to see she was happy and cherished. I was sad for Kade who was still rather in crush with her and maybe still felt left behind. I hope to see Chris find his way and for Kade to implement some of those ideas about the true intersection of Nonsense and Logic.

And way to go Rini, two out of two fictional Rini’s have traveled back to help save their mother now. And two out of two Rini’s have basically been the only reason that mother survived.

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Published by: Tor.com Publishing
Release: January 9, 2018
Series: Wayward Children Book 3
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