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Though things have improved over the years, it used to be that some books were harder to get in Canada than in the US, and we Canadians had to wait months for books to make their way here. With Lesley Livingston's book, this time Canadians have a treasure that's more difficult to get south of our shared border.

If you happen to be in the US, or somewhere else that Livingston's "Never" books are harder to find, I hope you'll make the effort to get them.

Once Every Never is an award-winning urban-fantasy-historical tale that is very much worth the trouble to find. And with the prevalence of online ordering, it shouldn't be too hard to get your hands on it.

Publication Details

• Full Title:Once Every Never
• Series: The Once Every Never Trilogy, Book 1 (aka Never Book 1)
• Author: Lesley Livingston
• Publisher: Puffin, Razorbill
• Publication Date: 2011 (Puffin), 2012 (Razorbill)
• ISBN: 9780143177951 (Puffin), 978-14-317796-8 (Razorbill), 9780143180777 (e-book)

Once Upon A Time

Clare Reid has a knack for getting in trouble, and this time it's resulted in her being packed off to spend the summer with her aunt in London while her musician parents travel with their orchestra. A summer in London doesn't sound so bad, especially since her best friend Allie has convinced her own mother to send her to visit relatives there, too. But Clare's beloved aunt, Magda, is a professor of archaeology and the summer ahead looks like it will be full of museums and academia.

For Allie, geek-girl genius, that could be fun, but Clare is more interested in shopping than culture-seeking. She's got an above-average IQ, but you would never know it -- she seems to be completely average in every other way.

Every Once In A While

Let's not forget that trouble finds Clare, no matter how good she tries to be, and on her first visit to the British Museum she touches an ancient Celtic artifact and gets transported back in time briefly. Thus begins an epic-feeling story of trying to prevent an historical tragedy (which just happens to involve an attractive young man), and trying to solve a mysterious theft in the present day.

But Clare can't do those things on her own, and soon Allie is involved, too, and then Allie's geek genius cousin Milo (newly developed from an awkward nerd to a smart hottie). Though Clare is the only one of the three who can travel back in time, the other two become essential to both the past and the present-day dilemma-solving. Allie, it turns out, is Clare's anchor in the present, necessary to call her back home. And Milo's intellect is indispensable for figuring out just what is going on.

Never Say Never

Livingston's writing is polished and smooth and so easy to read it almost becomes invisible. I was a little jarred from time to time by Clare's "teen-speak," her "you know"s and "totally"s and references to youth culture. I much preferred Allie and Milo's geeky intellectual speech. But Clare grows on you, and by the time you get to the end, you'll (hopefully) have realized that although she seems average, she really isn't. She is, in fact, far more than she appears to be.

Any book that deals with time has to address, however fleetingly, the paradoxes that it can create in a narrative. How do you deal with the fact that changing something in the past could alter the present irreparably? Livingston doesn't dwell on that too much (which I think is a good thing, in this book), but she doesn't ignore it, either. Actions have consequences, but once the characters figure out how Clare's actions change the present, they are able to use it to their advantage.

Once, Again, Never?

According to the back cover blurb on my copy of Once Every Never, the book was shortlisted for two awards in Canada: the 2012-2013 Stellar Book Award and the 2012 CLA (Canadian Library Association) Young Adult Book Award. Canada's biggest literature news magazine Quill & Quire named it the 2012 Young Adult Science Fiction Book of the Year.

Although it's been a while since I studied Celtic history (one of my passions a few years back), as far as I can tell, the history depicted in Once Every Never is pretty accurate, taking into consideration the changes a writer must make to get the story to work. It's also nice to see archaeology represented rather more accurately than is often the case.

There's no sex here (just a little kissing), but there is quite a bit of violence. The historical period -- the first century when Rome was still putting down rebellious uprisings in the British Isles by the local Celtic tribes who didn't want a foreign emperor to rule them -- was a particularly bloody one. I found Livingston's depictions of the Iceni queen Boudicca's rebellion and the everyday violence of the time to be harsh enough to be realistic, but not overly gruesome.

I don't really like to recommend books because they're useful -- I'd much rather have people read because they enjoy it -- but Once Every Never would actually be a good tool for getting kids interested in history, archaeology, or museums. And it is fun to read, too.

The second book in the trilogy is out (in Canada, at least) in early 2013, and as I write this, it's next in my queue of books to review. I also recommend Livingston's other series, beginning with Wondrous Strange, if you love fantasy, faeries, or Shakepeare. Or even if you don't.



Disclosure: A review copy was purchased by the reviewer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.