Book Review: The Unraveling of Emlyn DuLaine by Lindsay A. Franklin

Have you ever wished you could step into a favorite book to experience every layer of it? How fun to meet characters face-to-face and experience everything just as they do!

But let’s add a twist. What if you traveled through a portal to a new world—one that revolves around books—and realized that nearly everything you saw isn’t from a book on the library shelf. It all belongs in a story you imagined years ago. The people, the plants, the conversations, the terrain—they’re eerily familiar because they’re written in your old journal. Including the “Story Boy” who’s every bit as cute, swoony, and annoying in real life as he was on the page.

That’s the situation 17-year-old Emlyn DuLaine finds herself in. Sound interesting? Here’s the back cover copy for The Unraveling of Emlyn DuLaine by Lindsay A. Franklin:

A shattered heart, a fate foretold. The world undone by tales of old.

Emlyn DuLaine just wants to know what happened to her sister, Camille, seven years ago on the fateful day she vanished—literally. Emlyn witnessed Camille unravel and disappear, but no one believes her. Since they think she’s crazy, the least the cops could do is solve Camille’s case. Is a little closure too much to ask?

But Emlyn’s life is upended when she is pulled through a portal into the fantasyland of her childhood imaginings—a magical library holding the storyworlds of every story ever published. And trouble is brewing in the land of Rivenlea. Rogue characters threaten their plot lines, and broken classics are beginning to crumble, but Emlyn only wants to find Camille.

As she searches for her sister, Emlyn begins to learn the reality of Rivenlea and her own origins. A nefarious plot is afoot, and the line between fact and fiction is becoming hopelessly blurred. The truth threatens the storyworlds, Rivenlea, and Earth—the fabric of creation, itself.

The Unraveling of Emlyn DuLaine is the first in a new series by Franklin: The Rivenlea Sphere. It includes so many of the things that make YA books fun: a sassy, snarky main character who’s also awkward and impetuous; friends who are quick to love unconditionally, despite spats and hurt; a crush that’s sweet but infuriating.

But some deeper, real-world themes are woven among the lighthearted: grief, guilt, loneliness, and self-acceptance. Forgiving people and owning up to your own mistakes. Learning that it’s okay to be different.

And let’s not forget some of the things you’ll only find in fantasy novels, like transporting through a portal, encountering dragons and other mystical creatures, and interweaving Emlyn’s familiar life on Earth with her new reality.

It all mixes into a wonderful concoction for teen (and adult) readers.

If you visit Lindsay Franklin’s website, she introduces herself by saying, “I write stories of whimsy and wonder, heartache and healing.” The Unraveling of Emlyn DuLaine absolutely fulfills that promise.

Did you read Lindsay Franklin’s first series that began with The Story Peddler? If you enjoy reading fantasy, what’s your favorite thing about it?

Leave a comment so we can all add to our reading lists!