The Secret of Lillian Velvet, by Jaclyn Moriarty, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Secret of Lillian Velvet, by Jaclyn Moriarty (2023), is the fifth book of the very excellent Kingdoms and Empires series, which begins with The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone.  Last week I went nosing around in my tbr shelves (I have a problem) for a book I knew I would really really like reading, and this was the one I found (and it did work beautifully!).  And happily for me, it turned out to have a timeslip element to it, so this Tuesday was sorted!  It's not a particular spoiler, as the time slipping is a feature of the story and not the main plot point....

The main plot point is, as the title suggests, the secret of a young girl, Lillian Velvet, growing up with a horrible controlling and unloving grandmother in Australia.  Her life is lived inside the house and its small fenced in garden, doing school work and household tasks under grandmother's gimlet eye.  But then, much to her surprise, her grandmother gives her a jar of gold tokens as a birthday gift.  And a mysterious stranger takes them in exchange for visits to another world (which the reader of the previous books quickly recognizes as the Kingdoms and Empires).

There she finds herself, in each of her visits, confronted with someone who needs her help, which she freely gives to the best of her ability.  Again the reader of the previous books will recognize many of these people....except that their ages are wrong. This is the time slip part--she is visiting different time periods, which adds complexity to experience and leads to some twists and turns that are important to how the whole ensemble comes together.  But larger story aside, each small adventure is zesty in its way, especially when you get to meet old friends.

And meanwhile, the family of Bronte Mettlestone is gathering for a reunion with Bronte's missing grandparents, now returned.  But it seems it's not actually safe for them, after all....and it's up to Lillian Velvet, and the secret that she herself only learns toward the end of the book, to save them from malevolent magic.  I am not saying what the secret is.

This series is so much fun, with many delightful characters, magical twists, and extraordinary settings.  In this book, there's also the pleasure of seeing poor Lillian Velvet's cruelly constricted world widening as she makes friends with the Mettelstones, and getting the happy end she deserves.  I liked it so much that I think I really need to go out and buy all the earlier books, so I can have the pleasure of reading them all again at my leisure....and there is just enough room on my shelves for them, and room even for more new books in the series which I hope happens.