After racing onto the scene with his Percy Jackson & the Olympians series which focused on a modern adaptation of Greek mythology, Riordan is expanding the horizons of young readers everywhere with a new series entitled The Kane Chronicles. This is the first volume.

Our tale presents the adventures of two kids: 14-year-old Carter Kane and his 12-year-old sister Sadie. They are the two children of the famous archaeologist Julius Kane. When Carter was six, the family was broken up after the mysterious death of Carter and Sadie's mother on the streets of London. Carter got to travel the world with his father while Sadie remained living with her maternal grandparents in London. Since these grandparents blamed Julius for their daughter's death, they did everything to limit Sadie's access to him. If they were lucky, the three of them were reunited once ever six months.

Julius and Carter arrive for a visit with Sadie just as Christmas is kicking off. Little do they know it, but it is going to be the start of an adventure that has them hopping all over the world. Julius brings the kids to the British Museum so they can all see the Rosetta Stone. He actually has plans to use the stone to perform some magic in the hopes of bringing his kids' mother back to life. Things go terribly wrong, leading to an explosion that destroys the stone and heavily damages the museum. To make matters even worse, the five major gods of ancient Egyptian mythology are released and Julius is entombed in a sarcophagus that sinks into the museum's floor.

The Kane children find themselves drawn into the mysterious past of their family, which has close ties to the gods and the Egyptian royal lines. These connections are what give them a strong connection to the ancient magicks, and it will be up to them with the help of the cat-goddess Bast, a little shabti doll, a fun monkey, and a great cast of characters to prevent the dark forces of Chaos from taking over while also being distracted by an ancient secret soeciety.

Riordan has done a nice job of presenting the story with the two kids themselves telling the reader what their experiences were. They take turns throughout the novel leading the narrative, and humorously commenting about each other's asides.

My only complaint is that Riordan may have tried to throw in too many of the Egyptian mythological characters. As the book progresses, it sometimes feels like the kids and their allies are bouncing back and forth over the globe just to throw some of them in. With that said there is no shortage of humor and action to keep the pages turning. There is even a touch of romance as someone finds the jackal-god of death Anubis attractive. Whodathunkit?!?

The book ends with a bit of a teaser about the Kane family's next adventures, and it is clear that this is going to be the first of a very popular series.

This will be an easy book for fans of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians to read. Similarly, those who have toruble putting aside The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott an even the Everworld series by K.A. Applegate should also give this series a try.