Hotel dare

Charlotte, Darwin, and their recently adopted sister, Olive, are spending the summer with their grandmother, Mamá Lupe, and helping her fix up her tumbledown hotel in Mexico. While sneaking around her office, they find a strange artifact that opens glowing magenta doorways to other worlds. Gradually, the three siblings realize that Mamá Lupe knows far more about the portals and the artifacts than they originally thought, and their family history, including some unspoken tensions between their father and grandmother, is inextricably tied to the hotel and its interdimensional doorways. Blas and Aguirre build a lush, dynamic fantasy world that playfully spoofs classic adventure tropes and provides plenty of opportunities for tense action. Olive, Charlotte, and Darwin are refreshingly varied in body shape and skin tone, and they have compelling backstories, though these occasionally get swallowed by the fast-paced revealing of secrets and high-stakes action. Aguirre's cinematic page layouts and artwork, featuring exaggerated figure designs, a lush palette of saturated jewel tones, and plenty of luminescent lens flare, perfectly match the fantasy-adventure atmosphere.--Sarah Hunter Copyright 2019 Booklist