Amazon.com (ISBN 0747557640, Paperback)

Sixteen-year-old Ethan Roberts has more to worry about than his lackluster grades. As one of the Named, he is charged with secretly protecting history from the Order of Chaos--an evil group that seeks to alter the past to achieve ultimate power in the present. Ethan is given orders to train his first apprentice, 15-year-old Isabel Becket, in a few short weeks as his growing nightmares soon make it apparent that trouble is brewing on a cosmic scale. The two are helped by Arkarain--Ethan's violet-eyed, blue-haired, 600-year-old mentor--and their secret powers. Isabel is a healer. Ethan is a master of illusion. Their stories evolve in rotating chapters, each told in a similar first-person point of view that makes chapter transitions disorienting at times. But The Named is at its strongest when school and parents fade. Its imagined settings are a pleasure, from the booby-trapped catacombs that house the Prophecy that was written before time to the Citadel--a way-station to the past--with its wildly decorated rooms. Ethan and Isabel's missions to Medieval England and colonial America are also a thrill, indicating that the adventures detailed in this book are just the beginning for this duo. (Ages 10 and older) --D.J. Morel