The Forbidden Lock

Time Castaways #3

by Liesl Shurtliff

In this action-packed conclusion to the Time Castaways series from Liesl Shurtliff, New York Times bestselling author of Rump, it’s up to the Hudson kids to defeat Captain Vincent once and for all. With magic, mystery, and adventure, this series is perfect for fans of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library and Percy Jackson.

With the power of the Aeternum, Captain Vincent can rewrite history to create his perfect future. And thanks to Alfred Nobel, the notorious inventor of dynamite, Captain Vincent will soon be able to erase people from time altogether—including those pesky Hudson kids.

Mass chaos unfolds as time periods begin crashing into one another. Central Park becomes a playground for dinosaurs. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is overrun by the very historical figures it features. And the Hudsons begin to disappear, one by one, and Matt finds himself increasingly alone.

But hope comes from an unexpected a Vermillion rebel and Hudson ally has been keeping her own timeline a secret. A race to the Forbidden City reveals that Captain Vincent broke the lock on the three pillars of the universe—matter, space, and time—that created order in the world.

Only the Hudson kids are able to mend what he broke…and the key is in Matt’s birthplace, Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City of Colombia, where the Hudsons and Captain Vincent face off in the ultimate showdown—a battle for time itself.

Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Childrens, Adventure, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction

368 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 13, 2020

About the author

Liesl Shurtliff is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of books for young readers. Her books include RUMP, JACK, RED, and GRUMP, all part of the (Fairly) True Tales series from Knopf/Random House, and the TIME CASTAWAYS trilogy from Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

Liesl was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, with the mountains for her playground. Before she became a writer, Liesl graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in music, dance, and theater. She now lives in Chicago with her husband and four children. Visit her online at www.lieslshurtliff.com and @lieslshurtliff everywhere.

Reviews

[Belles Middle Grade Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wowza! This is how I read so many books! They’ve all been so good & unputdownable! This is a new favorite series for sure. This was such a perfect, epic conclusion. There was even more danger, action, suspense, adventure, & time travel. The stakes were even higher too, which made for an even faster read everything combined. We get all the answers to the unanswered questions, & what amazing answers they were. I’ve said it before, but these made my head spin-so the author being able to write this epic time travel trilogy & have it all come together, make perfect sense, & be utterly brilliant is TALENT. I’m sure she needed a mental break after these lol So happy she took on the challenge though, b/c it was genius, & I had such a great time traveling w/these AMAZING characters. I also learned SO much about things in history. I found myself looking up so many things she put in these about events/people from history. I LOVED that. Matt of course has my heart-such an intricate character(wrapped up in this equally intricate story), so intelligent, loyal, brave..& becomes more mysterious as you read as more & more questions come about. Corey & Ruby, his twin siblings are amazing. All the characters AND side characters are amazing. Chuck & Jia also have my heart. Unforgettable characters. These keep you engrossed until the very end. The “magic” even has a steampunk like quality to it-& you know I love that too! Highly recommend this trilogy! Another STUNNING cover by Alexandria Neonakis too!💜

[izzy torgesen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never write reviews for books but I just had to for this one. I found The Mona Lisa Key here on Goodreads then I finally got the first two books from the library. I was in love. I read every possible second trying to finish the books. I kept on nagging my mom about getting The Forbidden Lock shipped to our library as soon as I finished The Obsidian Compass. When I got the book, I finished it in 24 hours.

Can I just give a GIGANTIC shout out to the author?! This book series has a good amount of pages and such a complex plot that you never fully get until the very end. It must of taken a lot to think of it all and sort it all out- let alone writing it! A million gold stars!!! ⭐️

All the characters have these personalities that you can’t help but fall in love with. (My favorite character is Jia!) Even though they can drive you crazy at times, it all makes the story better and you can’t help but still love them!!!

The plot…. uhhhhhhh OhMyFrEaKiNgGoSh. It was the best, hands down. There were so many plot twists and unexpected things just popping up. WARNING!!!! This book is dangerous! It will keep you from wanting to do nothing but find out the answers that lie within its pages. Hold on folks!!!

I absolutely loved the epilogue. I wouldn’t have picked anything else for the three Hudson kids to do with there lives! It ended perfectly *chefs kiss 🤌❤️* I just imagine what the rest of their lives are like, because from what I already know, they’re perfect for them.

You’ll probably find it weird that I, a teenage girl, can and would fangirl over this book since the main character is barely 12. But let me tell you, I’m not gonna ignore a good book. I give it 100/10 stars. I wish I could read it again for the first time, cuz a good book just makes you happy. Sorry for the kinda long review and good job if you made it through the whole thing! 😂 (p.s. sorry for any grammar mistakes, I’m too lazy to go back and fix any 😂)

[Anders Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing!!! The best way to understand what I am saying is to just read the book. If you haven't already, Come on what are you waiting for.

[Krys · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Marissa Cheney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect ending to the series!! Exciting story with surprising answers to the unanswered questions left after the first two books! Loved it!

[The Book Kid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, hands down this book is amazing. I remeber years ago, I was at the library looking around in the new book section. I found the first book in the seris. I read a few chapters, then forgot about it. Last summer, my aunt had lended me the first two books. I didn't exactly fly through them, but enjoyed every part of them, and I was in love.
The charectors are amzing. Vincet, the villan who ws drove mad by love and like- I don't want to spoil it but he's pretty awful in this book. Mateo, a columbian orphan adopted by a time pirate and a normal guy and invents a time traveling compass. Ruby a tough Iwilltearyouapart kinda feminest personality, yet still cautious and acts like it's kinda her job to take care of her siblings. And Corey, the goofball kid that's probaly the kinda kid that teachers always are on. 🤣 Jia (my fav) is a hardworking tomboy who likes to repair everything and is witty and kinda akward at first.
I got the last book for christmas and tore through it in 3 days. And I admit, I'm not someone who gets really emotional about books. But, my brother kept checking at me wondering why I'm screaming and crying over a book. The sad thing is though nobodys really read it. It'd be really cool if some else could go fangirl about it with me lol Like this review if you want to scream about this book with me. (seriously I will talk about this book with you till we'll die)

[Rosemary Laurel Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

David, age 9, loved this book and says it is super adventurous!

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time travel makes my head hurt, all the …this happened in the future, which is really the past of the character's timeline, which is different from the chronological timeline of the story, and far from the timeline of the peanut butter and bubblegum operated shape-shifting time machine that can skip around like so many blocks in a hop-scotch.

But I love my time-traveling main characters, like Dr. Who, and Matteo Hudson is right up there.

Author Liesl Shurtliff navigates it all expertly, and we finally (kinda?) get an idea of who Matteo Hudson is and why Captain Vincent hates him so much.

Only this time, Captain Vincent has the Aeturnum, because he got there first, and he now has the ability to pull people out of time, blast their timelines to bits and prevent them from ever reforming. At least, that's what he's been able to do with some folks -- not the Hudsons, not yet. Just Napoleon, and a few other key figures. Which is all in the past.

So when the Hudsons "escape" from him, they find there's no where to escape to -- their world has already been altered. How long before they forget each other, much less all the ins and outs of the timeline they came from?

Matt holds the answer, of course, he always has. I won't spoil how he vanquishes Captain Vincent once and for all, but know it was a super satisfying wrap-up to the series! Enjoy!

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[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This series ended with a LOT of loose ends. I understand that with Sci fi authors are mainly writing about theoretical scientific topics that either haven't yet been discovered or sometimes simply never will. As a result, these authors are simply making things up as one might do for a magical world. Yet, I somehow felt dissatisfied with the incompleteness of this series. In the end there wasn't even an attempt to pretend to explain why this random kid is capable of time travel and disassembling his body to a cellular level. We just have to randomly accept that he and his siblings are capable of holding together the whole universe just because they love one another. And yet, their parents and the rest of the family can't do these things?
It felt weirdly Trinitarian like they were some kind of gods but also just kind of messed up.
Overall the series was fun. The ending just really let me down. It appeared from the previoustwo books that Shurtliff was good at connecting the dots and showing how things happened and came about. That all seemed to fall apart with this book and and semblance of explaining Mateo's powers or abilitieswas gone. What kind of sealed the deal for my dissatisfaction was the poorly written "National Geographic article" that "explained" what Jia had been up to. That wasn't by any means the most irritating feature but it's the most fresh in my mind!

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book series. So much in fact that I purchased this third book when I discovered my library didn't own a copy!

The final installment was everything one could hope for. It answered almost all of the questions and it was still full of surprises and had a very satisfying conclusion. There are still a few questions, perhaps one day there will be a follow-up or a prequel. I wouldn't mind reading a series of stories about the adventures of Captain Bonnaire! Definitely looking forward to reading the rest of Liesl Shurtliff's books. So far, I have only read Rump but I especially love fairy tales so I should definitely get on to reading Red, Jack and Grump. I suppose I hadn't read them yet because Rump was so good that I was worried the others couldn't stand up and would be a disappointment. But this trilogy has made me feel more confident that I have just found an amazing writer and I shall be getting to those others soon!

[Kaelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would probably give this book like maybe a 3.6 review, because it was not a bad read, but it was very much a different read then the others. The ending was pretty good and there was a nice feeling of closure to this series. This book takes you on a wild ride through time and it sometimes felt like a roller coaster! I felt like there was some stuff that could have been a bit better, but overall it was very creative!

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

My 10 y.o. and I loved this engaging, intriguing, and historically accurate time-travel series, and this last book did not disappoint. We even found ourselves looking up some of the historical people and landmarks mentioned, so we could learn more. Fascinating stuff!

[Jack O · Rating 4 out of 5]

~ Jack, age 12

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Holly Ekblad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the best book in the series

[Audra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Begining was hard to get into, end was good

[Annette Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story! This is #3 in the series! You need to read all three books!

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

It just kept getting better? I don't know what to say except I loved this story and the world to bits except for the ending
I NEED ANSWERS

[Bolt Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

My kids loved this series. I don’t hate this book. It’s just a too much book. Too much filler, too many characters, too much fiction with trying to educate, too much sadness, too much …

For me (the one reading it out loud to them), it was wordy and could have been edited down. There were chapters that didn’t add anything to the story. I think some kids might avoid this book because of it’s size. With the proper editing this book could have easily been closer to 300 pages instead of nearly 500 and the story would be great.

My kids stopped me during the story to ask who a character was and why. The characters had future and past selves so it could get confusing for my kids.

The touches of real history were great for my kids to learn. However, with so much fiction happening, it was difficult for them to know when they were getting a history lesson.

Finally, beloved characters die in this book or simply disappear. My kids would have liked it better if the Time Castaways fixed the past. No more generational gaps between their favorite characters. Two main characters get “fixed”, but not everyone else.

My kids enjoyed the series but this one was too much for us all.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this book and this series, a mix of family and time travel, this book is well thought out and planned. I wish that there were more books in this series.