Book review: Dandelion Fire by N. D. Wilson

The thirteenth book I read in 2018 was Dandelion Fire, the second book in N. D. Wilson's 100 Cupboards trilogy.  The story picks up pretty much where 100 Cupboards left off, with Henry and his family dealing with the aftermath of the events of that book as well as Henry's parents' reappearance and the threat of their imminent arrival to take their son back to the sterile life he knew in Boston.

Before he is taken away, Henry is determined to do more exploring in the cupboards, a clandestine plan that is derailed by (literally) a bolt from the blue.  Henry's electric experience attracts the unwelcome attention of a wizard named Darius obsessed with the secrets of Endor.  When Henry escapes his clutches, Darius travels through the cupboards himself, scooping up Henry's aunt, uncle and cousins, his friend Zeke, an unfortunate police officer named Ken Simmons, and the entire Willis farmhouse and sending the whole lot of them on a desperate journey between worlds to reunite the family and save the multiverse from the life-drinking evil of Nimiane.

The childish selfishness of Henry and his cousin Henrietta in the early chapters of this books is grating, though, in the characters' defense, they aren't as aware as is the reader of the dangerous stakes of the game they're playing.  The backstory of the Willis family's history with the cupboards is fleshed out more satisfactorily in this volume than in the first installment, where I found the supposed connections between the worlds sketchy.  Ken Simmons is a welcome and worthy addition to the cast of characters, as is Caleb, an ally discovered on the other side of one of the cupboards, and the entire race of Faeren, both villains and heroes.  Raise a gambler for Tate.