Stravaganza: City of Flowers

Mary Hoffman (author)

Bloomsbury, UK: 2005; 478pp

ISBN: 0747578184

Genres: adventure, fantasy

Issues: family, identity

Sky Meadow's mother has a chronic illness and he's never met his famous rockstar father. He's something of a loner at school and his life isn't particularly happy - or satisfying. Until, that is, he finds a beautiful blue glass bottle on his doorstep. Soon he is Stravagating to the parallel world of Talia, to the City of Flowers. Here he finds that he has responsibilities - and powers - that he doesn't fully understand.

There is a feud going on between the two major families, the di Chimici and the Nucci; a feud that tends to result in death and bloodshed. Sky must use his Talian persona to help the other Stravaganti bring about some kind of peace in Giglia, as well as protect the beautiful young Duchessa from danger. Sky finds that there are Stravaganti at his own school, too. Nick and Georgia help him train for his Talian role so that they can all protect those they love.

Darker and more complex than the earlier novels, this third book in the Stravaganza series draws together all the main characters from previous novels. The characters have necessarily matured and the narrative is driven as much by the increasingly complex relationships as it is by events in Talia. Hoffman has a talent for creating easily visualised contexts and her descriptive passages are often quite beautiful - concise, yet articulate and creative in their use of language.

The text is written in third person but the dominant perspective of the narrative changes constantly. At times the change of perspective seems unnecessary and interrupts the flow of the story. Although the conclusion is a little hasty and overly neat, this is still an enjoyable novel with a positively Shakespearean family conflict apparently based on Italian history, echoing the rise of the d'Medicis and the squabbles they had with many other families.

Same series: 1. City of Masks; 2. City of Stars