The Strangeworlds Travel Agency by LD Lapinski

Felicity has moved to Little Wyverns. Her parents are busy with work and care of her younger brother. Once all the unpacking is completed Felicity (Flick) is able to set off alone to explore the village. She is strangely drawn to one shop:

"a tiny, squashed-looking shop with a big bay window. It had a shiny black door and a corner porch with a stone step so worn it appeared to be melting into the pavement. Flick looked up at the sign. The Strangeworlds Travel Agency."

Inside this shop is very strange. No computers or busy staff instead she finds old dusty furniture, shelves of books and piles of old suitcases. There are clocks on the wall all ticking and running at different speeds. As she looks around, feeling that this odd place is slightly familiar, a young man comes through the doorway from the back of the shop. This is eighteen year old Jonathan Mercator - he is the owner of the shop even though he does not seem old enough. His official job title is Head Custodian.

Flick picks up a piece of glass from the floor of the shop and she holds it to her eye. The world outside the shop shimmers and she sees something very strange. To her eyes it looks like a crack but Jonathan knows it is actually a schism (a gateway to another world) and it seems Flick can see magic.  This means she can, should, and must join the Strangeworlds Society and more importantly she can help Jonathan find his lost father. The suitcases are portals to other worlds and they sound exciting but perhaps there are things Jonathan has not told Flick.

"You could travel to places you could never have imagined, see worlds on the edge of the multiverse. You could watch blue suns rise over mountains of red glass, see flowers the size of houses, hear the crunch of the ground as dragons hatch from hidden caverns, and feel the heat in the emptiness of space as a ship cruises close to a dying star."

Stories that take you to magical lands need a portal. In The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe the portal was the wardrobe which was full of winter fur coats. In The Strange Worlds travel agency suitcases are used as portals to all the different worlds.  The worlds themselves feel at times a little like the places you may have visited in The Phantom Tollbooth but they are perhaps not quite so quirky. These strange worlds feel dangerous and there is an urgency to discover why things are disintegrating.

I enjoyed meeting Flick. She is a girl who is brave and intuitive especially when she is captured by Glean who has plans to use Jonathan's suitcase for her own evil ends.

This is the first book in a series but fortunately, although there are many unanswered questions, this first installment does have a satisfying conclusion.

This is the first book by LD Lapinski. It is due for publication in May, 2020. Reviewers are listing this book for 9+ but I think it might have more appeal to an older group of 10+.  The 376 pages will require some reading stamina especially when the driving conflict (good and evil) is not explored until chapter 21. Thank you to Beachside Bookshop for my advance reader copy.