"Mystery of the Secret Queen" by Mark Miller

Olena has been Queen of he Eastern Sky for a year and is getting quite tired of the constant lessons she must learn to become an effective Queen. While she understands the reasons that the other Queens need her to complete her training, she is still only a 7 year old girl who misses her older sister and wants to have some fun. Spending most of her time in lessons is anything but fun.

When Isis, Queen of the Southern Valley is called back to her kingdom to deal with a crisis, Olena at first enjoys a little freedom from her lessons, but soon becomes bored as with no one her age in the castle she finds herself needing to keep herself entertained. When going through her things, she runs across a ring given to her by the blue rainbow princess. She didn’t understand the purpose of the ring when it was given to her, but now she tries it on for the first time.... and finds herself pulled into what seems to be a room inside of the ring.

Inside the ring, Olena meets 3 people who seem to be bronze statues that come to life to speak with her. While she is within the ring, one of it’s inhabitants takes her place in the outside world. But what is their purpose? It seems that Olena is to get the chance to have an adventure of her own.

Having read the first two books in this series, I enjoyed this one. The young Queen has a very large responsibility for a 7 year old girl, and the author does a good job of showing her as a young girl both trying to live up to her responsibilities, while still bemoaning the loss of her freedom to simply be a child and have fun. When she gets the chance to have her own adventure, she grabs it without thinking through the consequences of that action, just as any child tired of a seemingly endless number of lessons and responsibilities might do.

In this book we get the chance to learn more about the world Mr. Miller has created as well as those who inhabit it. I found it very entertaining. It held my interest and kept me wanting to read more about the characters he introduced me to in this book. I’m not certain if he plans on adding another book to this series in the future, but I believe that if he does that I would likely enjoy continuing to read about these characters and this world. Recommended