Winterborne Home for Mayhem and Mystery by Ally Carter

Summary from Goodreads:

Five orphans. Two sword-wielding vigilantes. One mansion. No rules.
April thought she had her happy ending. After all, she has her new house and new friends and new guardian. But she also has a very big new secret.

The kids of Winterborne House are the only ones who know that Gabriel Winterborne—famous billionaire and terrible cook—is really a sword-wielding vigilante.
What they don’t know is that he’s not the only one.

When a masked figure breaks in, looking for something—or someone—it’s clear that Gabriel has met his match, and now no one is safe. April and her friends will have to solve a decades-old mystery in order to hang on to the most important thing in the world: each other.

Review:

This is the sequel to Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor, a book I picked up on a whim when everything went into lockdown. Book 1 was so good, I passed it along to my husband, who does not read much in the way of Middle Grade book or YA. He’ll occasionally read it, but he prefers adult books. So, as soon as I learned book 2 existed, I pre-ordered it for my library and became number 1 on the wait list. And I think my husband has been eyeing it as I’ve been reading it…which by the way only took less than a day to do. My husband and I also both attended an author Q & A with Ally Carter at a digital library conference a week or two ago. That’s how into these books we are…

That all being said, I had super high expectations going into this book! I was not disappointed. I might have even liked it more than book 1. I just finished writing my review for a YA book, where I wrote that I called literally all of the plot in advance (except for one thing). In this book, I predicted nothing. It all surprised me. There are some HUGE reveals in book 2, and all of them made my jaw drop.

The characters in this book keep getting more and more interesting. The kids just keep getting closer. They are officially a family now. They do everything together. They solve decades old mysteries together. They run away from kidnappers together. They go take boats to booby trapped islands together. They rescue each other and they rescue guardians. There’s a lot of jokes and banter amongst the hyper intelligent kids. But, I was surprised to find tears in my eyes a couple of times in this book too. When April goes into detail about her life in the foster system to Sadie, and says things like how she’d stock up on free lunch food at school, so she’d have more to eat over the summer, I was just shaken.

So yeah, a lot of asks you to suspend your belief a little, with kids doing extraordinary things. But, then the book always sort of brings you back to reality. Like yes, these kids just climbed a super high wall or avoided a boat explosion, but also, they’ve never been to a candy store because they grew up in group homes.

There’s a lot more questions that come from this book too. Like what is everyone searching Winterborne House for? Why was it so important for no one to know April’s key? What else is Gabriel keeping secret? What was Winterborne Island really created for? And so much more! Honestly, I have more questions, but I’d be spoiling things if I asked any more here.

All in all, I read the whole book in probably a few hours (one sitting). It’s so good! I love the characters more now than I did in book 1. The author herself (from the Q & A I attended) describes these books as Batman mixed with Annie. How cool is that? The suspense and twists were just the best. How long until there is another one? I give this a 10/10.