Click The Book To
Get Your Copy

Max and The Gatekeeper

By: James Todd Cochrane

Blurb: A war has been waging for centuries; a magical and technological battle between good and evil. This conflict will affect life everywhere, but not everyone is aware it exists. When twelve-year old Max Rigdon is sent to stay with his grandfather for the summer, he unwillingly enters the fight.

The day Max steps off the bus he is marked with an evil curse and immediately becomes the target of evil men and creatures with designs on ruling the universe. Not only does this curse cause Max physical pain but it allows his enemies to track and find him. He soon learns that the reason for this unwanted attention is because his grandfather is the keeper of a gateway; a powerful machine that makes travel to hundreds of strange unknown worlds possible. The enemy will do anything to gain possession of this power in their quest to control all worlds.

With the help of his friend Cindy and others, Max must quickly learn the necessary skills to survive if he is to avoid the deadly trap that has been planned for him and his grandfather. A trap that has been decades in the making with Max as the missing piece. If successful it will change life as we know it.

Review: Max Rigdon felt doomed as he began his summer vacation.  Forced, by his mother, to spend the summer with his reclusive grandfather, Max felt condemned.  He didn’t know this man who portrayed himself as his grandfather.  The town where he lived seemed to be on the other side of the world and he knew no one there.  This was going to be a horrible summer.

Grandpa Joe was definitely different.  The town in which he lived was different, his house was different, too.  The property was gated and Grandpa Joe made certain that Max knew the gate must remain closed and locked at all times.  Was this man crazy or just paranoid?  Max would find the answer to that and many other questions as the summer progressed.

Summer for Max was baseball and friends.  Grandpa had other ideas.  The property was covered in tall weeds that Grandpa wanted removed.  The house needed painting, too.  Max would earn his keep this summer.

And what about all those people dressed in black hooded capes?  They were at the bus station, they came up to the gate, and they always seemed to be chanting.  What’s that all about?

Other boys in this town were weird, too.  Bullies would be a better name.  It seemed as if they hated Max’s Grandpa Joe, Max and any other strangers in town.

Grandpa Joe’s house was nothing like Max had ever seen before, but not in a good way.  It was old, had no television, and had nothing a teenager would find interesting – except maybe the library or that room in the attic.  Why did Grandpa Joe tell Max to stay away from that room?  What was he hiding there?  What could possibly be so important that Grandpa Joe felt the room had to be kept a secret?

Thank goodness for Cindy, the girl who lived next door.  She was new to the town and had many of the same feelings as Max had.  The kids bullied her and the mysterious cloaked men chanted for her to follow them as well.

More questions than a teen needed to have – and there were no answers coming from Grandpa Joe, either.

Max’s summer would not be boring.  It would be one to remember for the rest of his life.