Marcus is devastated when his mom, Holly, ruins his summer plans by buying a junky old trailer and taking him to her childhood vacation spot, Diamond Beach. When they arrive, Holly runs into Coco, one of her friends from the old days, all grown up and married to a semi-famous inventor, Sterling Huckstepp. They have two kids; Newt, a sassy teen girl, and a younger boy, Edison. Their trailer is full of crazy inventions, including a bumbling robot, Prot, so it’s no big surprise to Edison when the boys find that Marcus’s trailer has a cellar. When Edison opens the cellar door, it leads to a fantastic amusement park, and he doesn’t want to leave. Marcus realizes the cellar creates the personal dream vacation of whomever opens the door, only the vacation never, ever, ends. Enlisting the help of Prot, Newt and the grown-ups takes the action up a notch as they all fight to escape the trap, rescue Holly’s missing childhood crush, and defeat the evil that is trying to destroy them. Readers will be dying to get lost in this world of dreams, nightmares, and deception. Jinks deftly mixes mild horror with humor to give younger readers a few shivers, and make older readers chuckle. Each dream/nightmare world sheds dramatic, sometimes touching, insight into the character whose hopes and fears created it. Completely absorbing and totally fun.
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