A hotly anticipated release, book four in The Misewa Saga by David A. Robertson, The Portal Keeper, shifts the focus from Morgan to Eli as once again the kids are back in The North Country.

Eli, Morgan and Emily have found a new portal and have headed back to The North Country in hopes of reuniting with their family in Misewa. Along the way they are trapped in a net and taken to a new village called Ministik. There the villagers are wary of them at first but soon warm up and begin telling them of their trouble. Their villagers keep disappearing, being taken by a trio of humans. Eli, Morgan and Emily spring into action vowing to help the pisiskowak of Ministik find the missing. 

Book four does not disappoint! Thrilling from page 1 to page 243, it was a difficult read to put down. Although I’m a little sad about the decision to change the vibe of the cover for the last 3 books of the series, I’m a huge fan of Natasha Donovan’s cover art. I understand the decision and I do have to say that the new covers do look pretty good. Change of cover or not, all that readers have come to expect from the series is there along with some new characters to mix things up.

I love how Eli takes center stage now that Morgan has been reunited with her kokom. Eli begins the journey by finding the new portal to The North Country and ends the story with a brilliant revelation. Always hot with the cliffhangers, David A. Robertson is classic for leaving readers wanting more which is the best (and worst) part of reading a series as it is being published.

What strikes me as brilliant is that if readers have not read the first three books in the series, they wouldn’t be completely lost. Sure there is some background they would be missing but I don’t feel that it would detract from this overall story. David A. Robertson does a great job of catching everyone up so that both readers of the entire series and those just jumping in at this point, know the back story.

Now to impatiently wait for book five.