#5Questions

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Title: Kitty Hawk and The Curse of Yukon Gold

Author: Iain Reading

Publishing Date: December 2012

Kitty Hawk and the Curse of the Yukon Gold is the thrilling first installment in a new series of adventure mystery stories that are one part travel, one part history and five parts adventure. This first book of the Kitty Hawk Flying Detective Agency Series introduces Kitty Hawk, an intrepid teenage pilot with her own De Havilland Beaver seaplane and a nose for mystery and intrigue. A cross between Amelia Earhart, Nancy Drew and Pippi Longstocking, Kitty is a quirky young heroine with boundless curiosity and a knack for getting herself into all kinds of precarious situations.
After leaving her home in the western Canadian fishing village of Tofino to spend the summer in Alaska studying humpback whales Kitty finds herself caught up in an unforgettable adventure involving stolen gold, devious criminals, ghostly shipwrecks, and bone-chilling curses. Kitty's adventure begins with the lingering mystery of a sunken ship called the Clara Nevada and as the plot continues to unfold this spirited story will have armchair explorers and amateur detectives alike anxiously following every twist and turn as they are swept along through the history of the Klondike Gold Rush to a suspenseful final climatic chase across the rugged terrain of Canada's Yukon, the harsh land made famous in the stories and poems of such writers as Jack London, Robert Service and Pierre Berton. It is a riveting tale that brings to glorious life the landscape and history of Alaska's inside passage and Canada's Yukon, as Kitty is caught up in an epic mystery set against the backdrop of the scenery of the Klondike Gold Rush.
Kitty Hawk and the Curse of the Yukon Gold is a perfect book to fire the imagination of readers of all ages. Filled with fascinating and highly Google-able locations and history this book will inspire anyone to learn and experience more for themselves as Kitty prepares for her next adventure - flying around the world!

1. How did you get into writing?

What got me into writing was when I first came up with the idea of the character of Kitty Hawk, the heroine of my first book series, The Kitty Hawk Flying Detective Agency.  The idea of this character seemed to take on a life of her own from the first moment I thought of it, slowly building over time, bit by bit, until she seemed as real to me as anyone else that I knew.  With all these ideas swirling around in my head I just knew that I had to eventually put them down onto paper, which of course eventually I did.

2. When starting a book how much of it comes straight from your imagination and how much is research?

Anyone who’s read the Kitty Hawk book series probably can guess that a fair bit of research is required to put together those stories. Fortunately a lot of that research is very fun since it requires visiting the same beautiful and amazing places that Kitty Hawk herself visits. My other book series, The Guild of the Wizards of Waterfire requires almost no research, by comparison.  In some ways I find that very liberating.  Maybe some day I might write a really fantastical book based in a really far away and crazy universe?

3. Who is your favourite character you have written and why?

As you might have guessed already, it is Kitty Hawk who is my favourite character who I’ve written.  She is the best for so many reasons.  She is brave and confident, and daring and smart.  She is also tough but still human.  And I think she is an amazingly strong female lead character and a great role-model.

4. Do you go into a book knowing how you want it to end?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  Sometimes I have one thing in mind and I end up somewhere else instead.  I tend to usually know well ahead of time where things are going, but I find that writing is a very fluid thing to do.  It changes as you go and the story leads you where it wants to go, leaving you trailing behind sometimes, struggling to keep up.

5. What 5 books would you recommend for your readers?

1. The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux
2. Contact by Carl Sagan
3. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean
4. IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black
5. Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

Kitty Hawk

Kitty Hawk and The Curse of Yukon Gold

by Iain Reading

Summary

After leaving her home in the western Canadian fishing village of Tofino to spend the summer in Alaska studying humpback whales Kitty finds herself caught up in an unforgettable adventure involving stolen gold, devious criminals, ghostly shipwrecks, and bone-chilling curses. Kitty's adventure begins with the lingering mystery of a sunken ship called the Clara Nevada and as the plot continues to unfold this spirited story will have armchair explorers and amateur detectives alike anxiously following every twist and turn as they are swept along through the history of the Klondike Gold Rush to a suspenseful final climatic chase across the rugged terrain of Canada's Yukon, the harsh land made famous in the stories and poems of such writers as Jack London, Robert Service and Pierre Berton. It is a riveting tale that brings to glorious life the landscape and history of Alaska's inside passage and Canada's Yukon, as Kitty is caught up in an epic mystery set against the backdrop of the scenery of the Klondike Gold Rush.
Kitty Hawk and the Curse of the Yukon Gold is a perfect book to fire the imagination of readers of all ages. Filled with fascinating and highly Google-able locations and history this book will inspire anyone to learn and experience more for themselves as Kitty prepares for her next adventure - flying around the world!

Okay so this book is really well written and really well researched. However, it seems to be having a little bit of an identity crisis! It can’t seem to decide whether it’s a textbook or a novel – which is kind of important don’t you think? The author probably intended to try and educate through the use of fiction but it really didn’t work. I like a good documentary. I also like an adventure. But what I don’t like is having them both mixed up together. If the tactic was to merge fact with fiction it needed to be seamless but in this book the jumps between the two genres is stilted and forced. I therefore found myself skim reading the factual stuff to get back to the story which to be honest, wasn’t that compelling and the characters weak. I especially found the conversations between Kitty ‘and the little voice in her head’ really annoying.

There was also the issue that I can’t quite decide would its audience was. The cover suggests ages 10-14 but the content – especially the factual stuff – is much higher. Then there were the maps and the pictures, which in all honesty were totally unnecessary.

I didn’t find the characters believable – even the baddies were goodies – and Kitty seems to be a bit too perfect. She was a strong female lead promised so much but gave so little. Which lead to yet another disappointing aspect of this book.

Also where was the romance? I thought it was going to happen around p52 but it just fizzled out into nothing.

This book should have been really good but it fell short.

Would I read another Kitty Hawk book? Simple answer, no. It was really hard work!