The Portal

“Kathryn Lasky’s latest is a sleight-of-hand that will have you clapping your hands. With the brio and big-heart that characterizes all of Lasky’s work, this opening salvo of a new series can be heralded with trumpet fanfares and clouds of rose petals.” –Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Egg & SpoonFor fans of the Royal Diaries series and Gail Carson Levine, Newbery Honor-winning author Kathryn Lasky delivers the first enchanting adventure in a compelling new middle grade series about a newly orphaned girl who finds herself time-travelling between the present day and the court of the two most memorable English princesses in history.Life used to be great for Rose: full of friends, a loving mom, and a growing fashion blog.But when her mother dies in a car crash, Rose is sent away to live with a strange grandmother she hardly knows and forced to attend a new school where mean girls ridicule her at every turn.The only place Rose finds refuge is in her grandmother’s greenhouse. But one night she sees a strange light glowing from within it. She goes to investigate…and finds herself transported back five hundred years to Hatfield Palace, where she becomes servant and confidant of the banished princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Henry VIII.Rose soon discovers something else amazing–a locket with two mysterious images inside it, both clues to her own past. Could the greenhouse portal offer answers to the mysteries of her family…and their secrets?–School Library Journal