Latter-day Spies: Spyhunt - LDS Book Review

Spyhunt, by Michele Ashman Bell, is the first in this new series called Latter-day Spies. The story revolves around three children, Seth and Sadie who are twins, and their friend Fami who's blind. These children love to play a game, called Spy Hunt, with their other friends. They separate into two teams and select a destination which one team must reach before the other one catches them. When some scary stuff starts happening they end up playing Spy Hunt for real.

Overall I enjoyed reading this book because the story and characters were captivating but it had too many unbelievable aspects that I just couldn't overlook. One of those things was that the main characters, who're only 11 years old, were allowed to travel throughout Frankfurt, Germany (where the twins' father is the U.S. Ambassador) all by themselves. This wouldn't have been hard to overlook but throughout the book the parents were always very cautious about what their children did, where they went, and who they talked to... yet they would let them roam around a huge foreign city on their own? Another negative aspect of the book was all the coincidences, such as how the children were learning new things or playing pranks on each other that they were able to use later when their lives were in danger. Now the actual things they did were very clever and the author is very imaginative but it would have been more realistic if there had only been a few coincidence instead of flooding the story with them. The third thing that I found unacceptable was the way the author added a bit of psychic fiction to the story. Now this wouldn't have been a problem if it had been on its own but the story talks about LDS beliefs, and the psychic stuff did not mix at all. I enjoyed the book but was disappointed with the above aspects, which is why I only gave it 3 stars. I would recommend that parents read this book with their children and discuss the story with them.