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The Dark Portal by Robin Jarvis5/12/2023 Moreover, although the simultaneously symbolic and literal three-tiered world of bats, mice, and rats is well imagined and beautifully detailed, the narrative is rather dense, causing the book’s story engine to flag at several points. Still, the characters lack that elusive quality of lovability that makes the reader care deeply about their fate. He does a good job, especially through the dialogue, of differentiating the multitude of mice, rat, and bat characters that populate the book. As the stakes rise, Jarvis ratchets up the suspense, neatly juggling several story lines that culminate in a remarkable climactic disclosure. The battle begins when a young mouse named Audrey Brown bravely slips between the bars of the basement grate, the portal between the mouse and rat universe, to search for her father, who has met with misadventure and disappeared into the hellish world beneath. Together they fight the evil, filthy rats, denizens of the dark and slimy sewers, who are ruled by a demonic overlord named Jupiter. The side of good is represented by a society of harmonious, quiet-living mice who are aided and abetted by the more spiritual and mysterious bats above. Popular in England but never before published in America, the first book of Jarvis’s fantasy trilogy depicts an epic battle between good and evil.
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