The Secret of Ka

* * * */ Four Stars

Genre: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Suspense, Humor, Romance, Fantasy

When Sara goes on a trip to Turkey with her archaeologist dad, she thinks that she and him will be going out, eating at cool restaurants, sight-seeing, and overall just 'bonding'. Instead, she has hardly seen him for 1 week, cooped up in her hotel room. When she convinces her dad to go eat lunch together at his work-site (finally), she sees a mysterious woman and trails off. The women disappears, and she finds a matted, dirty old carpet in the sand. She and a cute boy who works there, Amesh, clean it up, and Sara suddenly feels . . . drawn to it. The two soon realize that this is a magic carpet, like those from legend, and their curiosity to see what it can do and where it can take them overpowers their concerns and fears about it. What they didn't see coming was that the carpet flew them into another world, the land of the Djinn, while they slept through the night on it. Sara and Amesh scour the island, looking for food and water, when they find the temples holding the 'lamps' of the djinn (not specifically lamps, though; the djinn could be attached to any object, such as a sword or chair or painting, etc). Amesh, being extremely poor, having lost his hand, and more, naturally wants to make one wish. Harmless, right? But neither of them truly understand the dangers of making a deal with a djinn, not knowing their sacred laws of magic. What will their wishes cost them?
I really loved this beautifully-crafted book by Christopher Pike (though it ends some-what incomplete, and I don't know if he will be making a sequel, which is what downgraded it a star). I think that anyone wanting a fantasy that they can dig into and search for a greater meaning will love this intricate novel with its complex story.