Misaligned Series by Armen Pogharian

Review of Penny Preston and the Raven’s Talisman (book #1) and Penny Preston and the Silver Scepter (book #2) from the Misaligned series

“The Raven’s Talisman” and “The Silver Scepter” are the first and second books in the Misaligned series by Armen Pogharian. The series begins in the first book when eighth grader Penny Preston discovers that she is misaligned during a food fight in the school cafeteria. She exists in more than three dimensions.  Misalignment gives her special abilities, but unless she immediately begins training, she risks losing her sanity.  She agrees to secretly train with her counselor and his friend Master Poe, an exile from the seventh dimension trapped in a raven’s body.  In training, she learns that she is the key to preventing higher-dimensional beings from entering our universe, which could doom us.

The second book picks up where the first leaves off. While closing a time fold spawned by the events of the first book, Penny encounters a knot in time. The only way she can break it is by releasing a never before seen red time strand. This leads to the discovery of a prehistoric artifact and a series of baffling events and two beings from other dimensions arriving in Penny’s world causing havoc. Penny and her friends must once again race to unravel the secrets of the artifact and prevent either of the new arrivals from using it to return to power.

Both of these books are extremely well written. They are well-plotted and paced very nicely. The author provides a nice mixture of action and interesting plot developing dialogue, which includes bits of Arthurian legend, Celtic mythology, and archeology. The dialogue is detailed enough to paint a perfect picture and draw the reader in, but not too detailed so as to slow down the pace. The author also incorporates an excellent mix of extra-dimensional characters, some of which take on a form familiar to our world, including a talking raven and an awesome cat (I want a Cait Sith cat).  The author has an excellent imagination and is able to bring that imagination to life in this fantasy tale.

While each of these two books can be a stand alone read, once you read one, you won’t want to stop until you read the other. I can’t wait to read the third book in the series, Penny Preston and the King’s Blade. While you get the hint that the protagonist, an incredibly intelligent and likeable teenage girl, and her best friend, a teenage boy, want to be more than friends, these two books go no further than best friends. The series includes some descriptions of fighting against mythical creatures, but there is no foul language, no drug use, and no sexual scenes. If either book was a movie, it would receive a PG rating. While targeted at Middle Grade and Young adult, I recommend these books to anyone who enjoys a good fantasy adventure.