People of the Sun follows cautious John and adventurous Sarah on their third adventure through time. With their first journey to ancient Egypt, and their second to ancient Rome, I was curious to see the young siblings dive into the the Aztec civilization.

While the first two were definitely stand-alone adventures along the lines of magic treehouse, I felt like this story tried to weave together an overarching plot through their adventures. Instead of getting thrown back in time, and fighting to get home, John and Sarah had a new, grander purpose in this book.

While I really liked the concept that there’s now a bigger reason behind their travels through time, I felt like in the first half of the book we got bogged down with the details of time travel, with rules that were both specific and yet also leaned heavily on the “advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” philosophy, which made it feel inconsistent.

As always, I really enjoyed the effortless style of writing as well as the historical detail of the Aztecs, although I wish they had been able to spend more of their time there and get to connect the Aztec characters a little more. I thought John and Sarah’s moral dilemmas that come along with time meddling were an interesting touch as well, but with the sticky time traveling logic they were following, I don’t think it quite resonated as well I would have liked.

Overall, I think fans of the first two books will really enjoy the third installment of the Eye of Ra series as it continues John and Sarah’s high-stakes historical exploration, and I’m curious to see where they go next! People of the Sun launches 1 Feb 2022, and is available for preorder here.

Thanks so much to the publisher for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

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Thanks for reading!