FIVE STAR REVIEWS
Reviewed by Criss S (age 13) for Amazon.co.uk
Reviewed by Ciara (age 13) for Reader Views Kids, Barnes & Noble and Goodreads
I was pleasantly surprised how the author turned an affliction into a super hero power. “Episode,” by Tracey Morait gives the reader a glimpse at what it means to have epilepsy, but instead of writing the story about how hard this can be for someone’s day-to-day life, the author creates this world where it is a gift and not a curse.
Alisha has epilepsy, but she doesn’t let that hold her back. She is outgoing, sassy and my favorite character in the story. While on vacation with her family, because of the heat, her seizures start to come more frequently. She can’t help but feel that her vacation is going to be horrible. Until one night she notices a strange noise coming from the hotel pool. An unusual woman half bird, half human is calling her name. Alisha’s vacation is about to turn into an epic adventure, where the thing that has been holding her back all her life, gives her powers that she could never have dreamed of.
“Episode” is a fast-paced story taking the reader back to the Olympian era, where a conflict that brings about the Trojan War is beginning. When Alisha meets Travis she finds out that her seizures will open time travel portals and that she has been brought here just like him to confront Gods, Goddesses, and mythical creatures.
I think one of my favorite parts in the book was when they found a cave to escape the robots that were trying to kill them, and they noticed an enormous eye that ended up being a dragon. The story line was one turn after the other, all to save Helen from her terrible fate of marrying Menelaus, King of Sparta.
I think the author did a great job of making history a fast-paced adventure. “Episode” by Tracey Morait will surprise you from the very beginning to the ending and keep you on the edge of your seat in between. This a great story for kids in middle school and up.
Danielle Taylor for Waterstones and Goodreads
I’m into fantasy stories and ancient Greek mythology and I love the Iliad and the Odyssey. At first I thought the subject matter was a bit weird, someone with epilepsy being able to time travel, but when I got into the book I was hooked. I loved the retelling of Helen’s story and how she wanted to turn her back on being submissive and the influence of the gods in determining her life, and how Ali and Travis were brought into her story to help her escape to another world. The Trojan War is a mythical war and the author cleverly points this out by not retelling it but preventing it from happening. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a great bit of escapism.
I have recommended the book to my daughter, who is reading the book now and also enjoying it.
MJ Haines for Amazon.co.uk and Goodreads
Now, the story. This book is so hot off the press I cannot reveal much, so spoilers to be avoided at all costs, but let’s just cover the basics to give an idea of what’s what.
A family from Liverpool are on holiday in Cyprus – mum, dad – and two daughters, who, as can often be the case, do not get on with each other. One of the girls – Alisha, called Ali by those closest to her, has epilepsy. While her parents are sympathetic, as indeed they should be, her sister Sal resents Ali for not only getting more attention than her due to her illness, often sees family time whether holidays or at home, severely disrupted through Ali’s seizures. However, while in Cyprus, Ali discovers her seizures can open time portals; sometimes she is drawn into a portal involuntarily, but as the tale develops Ali finds she has an element of control and on occasions is highly relieved to be once again shooting through time and space.
Although there are brief sojourns through time and space to the Shetland’s main town of Lerwick as well as her home town of Liverpool, with of course short spells back to the ‘here and now’ of the family holiday in Cyprus, the main setting for the tale is ancient Sparta and the court, if that’s the right word, of Princess Helen, or, Helen of Troy as we know her better. Through Ali we become witnesses to many scenes we know and love through such revered tomes as the Iliad, and many other incidents which (and only reading this book can explain why, including an amazing turn of events involving future technology) never made the history books at all. All the famed characters: Helen, Paris, Hector, Menelaus, Agamemnon and more are there, some are prominent in the tale, others not so much. The gods and goddesses are there too, as they should be; Zeus and his boys and girls, each with their own special powers, each using these for good, or for bad, and sometimes both from the same deity. And that is all I can tell you.
Although the target age seems to be broadly older kids / YA, that don’t matter a jot, all, no matter if 10 or a 110, who enjoy fast-paced, light and humorous tales, will love this.
All in all, another cracking read from Tracy Morait.
Lit Amri for Readers Favorite
Thirteen-year-old Alisha Dainton is having a sunny holiday in Cyprus with her family. Unfortunately, her epilepsy and her obnoxious 16-year-old sister Sal manage to ruin the fun. While resting in their family hotel room, Alisha encounters a strange half-woman, half-bird with see-through eyes and multi-colored hair. She claims to be Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, the Sea and the Sky－a Messenger to the Gods. She has been chosen to help save Princess Helen. Despite her disbelief and unwillingness, Alisha finds herself traveling back in time to the ancient city of Sparta. There she meets another time traveler, a teen named Travis, whose purpose is also to aid Helen. Episode by Tracey Morait is a fantastical adventure tale of two teens fated to change history and influence the future.
Episode is a contemporary story combined with Greek as well as Norse mythology and literature. It’s a slightly odd but fascinating mixture of drama and fantasy intertwining the past, present, and future through time travel. Alisha is a teenager who has enough problems with her epilepsy and her annoying sister, so why bother going back to the ancient past to solve another person’s problem? Despite their status as divine beings, I perceived the Greek gods and goddesses in this story as undesirable forces that meddle in a young mortal’s life. That said, Alisha’s fellow time traveler Travis indirectly benefits from the task that’s forced upon him. It’s fascinating that a disorder in brain activity becomes an important catalyst for the young protagonists to take control of their fates in their dangerous mission. There are unpredictable plot twists that readers will appreciate as Tracey Morait gives a fresh perspective on the Trojan War. Overall, Morait’s Episode is a story that uses its different time settings to its advantage.
POSITIVE REVIEWS (NON-STARRED)
Drena Irish, Ambassador, LoveReading4Kids
Episode by Tracey Morait is a fanciful re-imagining of the story of Helen of Troy. It is also an attempt to show just what it’s like to experience an ‘episode’, that is an epileptic seizure. The story brings together some well-known characters from the world of Ancient Greece – Helen, Menelaus, Paris, Hector and, of course, the ‘meddlesome’ gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus – with Alisha, a 13-year-old from the present day and Travis from a terrifying England at the end of the 21st century. The action switches between these three time zones, which Ali and Travis are able to access by time travel through portals, which come into being at the time of their seizures, as both are epileptic. The author paints a very realistic picture of life in Ancient Greece, a life Alisha finds very distasteful when catapulted there from a family summer holiday in Cyprus, as she is dressed, smells and is expected to behave as a slave girl. Her outrage and contempt for the system, especially the treatment of women, rubs off on Helen and the story then takes on a very different twist. The terror from Travis’ time also comes into play when destructive entities access the portals and rewrite the events of the Trojan War, until the combined ingenuity of Travis and the gods (particularly Chronos, god of Time) finally set the records straight. I really enjoyed this book, it rekindled my interest in Greek mythology. It’s an exciting fusion of legend and science fiction, with the added medical theme, which, as my granddaughter is epilectic, I also found fascinating.
