Book review: The Explorers: The Reckless Rescue by Adrienne Kress

The twentieth book I read in 2018 was the second book in the Explorers series by Adrienne Kress, The Reckless Rescue.  The kids and I greatly enjoyed the first book in the series, The Door in the Alley, so my hopes were high for this sophomore effort.

Unfortunately, this installment of the story left me fairly flat.  Picking up right where the first book left off (literally mid-sentence, which is good for a chuckle), the narrative sees Sebastian and Evie separated, and they stay separated for the majority of the book.  This might have been okay, except the bulk of the plot seems to be filler, desperately vamping to keep the pair apart until the Exciting Conclusion.  There's an interminable K-pop storyline that seems to go next to nowhere -- except that I'm sure that in the final volume all the friends the pair have made along the way will show up to help save the day.  It's that kind of story.

Kress seems to have committed herself to the pair discovering a new member of the disbanded Filipendulous Five in each installment, which means we're looking at two more books before Evie finds her grandfather in the fifth book.  She is going to have to come up with some more interesting adventures to keep me reading that long.