Age 09-12. 1 Star. In this modern-to-medievel time-travel fantasy, a family of three children and their father go to live in Wales for the winter, grieving the loss of their wife and mother. Twelve-year-old Peter finds a key which opens a portal into ancient Wales — and he and his sisters must resist a rising threat when knowledge of the key spreads to those who wish to misuse it. The book is recommended by several good sources and is entertainingly well written, with good character development and a sustained sense of magic lurking at the edges of the children’s dreary lives. Unfortunately, the dreariness of their lives seems to originate in their relationship with their father…. Although skilfully written, the bitter, secretive protagonist in this story is anything but admirable, and his father is worse. The biblical ideal of a family in which parents love, lead and train their children, is entirely absent. The magic in the story is enticing, and the interweaving of modern and historical Wales is masterful, but the detached, egalitarian family dynamic is quite poisonous.