Title: The Whizbang Machine
Author: Danielle A. Vann
Genre: YA Mystery
Age Group: Young Adult
Rating: 4,5 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
After years of running from his tragic past, Jack Yale books a flight home. With him is a typewriter that is intended to be a gift for his granddaughter, Elizabeth. The minute Elizabeth’s fingers cradle the large black and cream keys the machine responses: popping, sizzling, and roaring to life with a Whiz-Whiz-BANG!
Elizabeth quickly discovers the typewriter has powers beyond anything she has ever seen. The more she types, the more the machine spells out guarded secrets. Each secret leads them deeper into a haunted past. Each secret must be revealed in order to set history straight and remove a curse that has been on their family for centuries.
To solve the mystery, Elizabeth Yale, alongside Jack, will have to crack the code of the Whizbang Machine. What they find challenges their most basic assumptions of their family, the history of the typewriter, and even Elizabeth’s father’s death. The ultimate goal is to remove the curse.
The question is: will Jack and Elizabeth be able to carry out their mission?
The Whizbang Machine is an intriguing, mysterious YA novel about Jack Yale, a grandfather in the possession of a very special typewriter, and his granddaughter, Elizabeth. After years of running from the past, Jack heads home, bringing with him a typewriter intended to be a gift for his granddaughter, Elizabeth. But the typewriter is so much more than that – when she types, the machine spells out secrets from the past, and each secret must be revealed if Elizabeth wants to set history straight, and remove a curse that has been tormenting her family for centuries.
What I really liked about this book, was the focus on the relationship between Jack and Elizabeth – grandfather and granddaughter. This was one of the first YA books I read that focuses on this, and it’s an unique focus that made me like the book all that more. The mystery worked very well too, and kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time.
Blending mystery, fantasy, and history, this is one of those timeless stories a reader won’t forget any time soon.
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