Two Times a Traitor

Laz Berenger is on an enforced holiday in Halifax with his family instead of hanging out with his friends in Boston. Here, the only thing of mild interest to him is the Citadel, a restored British-built fortification. Determined to explore by himself, the twelve-year-old wanders off and finds some hidden chambers, where something seems very odd. His St. Christopher’s medal becomes hot, there’s a strange smell, and suddenly everything goes black. When he wakes up and finds his way outside, nothing is the same. Before he knows it, he has a sword pointed to his throat. And men, who look like extras from Pirates of the Caribbean, force him onto a rowboat and deliver him out to an old-time sailing ship anchored in the bay. Laz’s last name and ability to speak French clinches it for his English captors. The captain strips him of his St. Christopher’s medal and accuses him of being a French spy. Laz realizes, to his horror, that it is 1745 and he is trapped in time. These English colonists, still loyal to King George, are at war with the French. Convinced that his medal had something to do with his shift in time, Laz will do anything to get the medal back, even promise to spy on the French at the fortification of Louisbourg, while the English prepare their ships to bombard the town. Once in Louisbourg, Laz earns a job as runner to Commander Morpain. And the boy learns to love the town and the kind commander. How will Laz find a way to betray the inhabitants of Louisbourg? How else can he hope to earn back his St. Christopher’s medal and find his way back to his own time?The award-winning author of The Hill and Graffiti Knight has written an enthralling, swash-buckling time-slip adventure for middle-grade readers centered on a fascinating period in North American history.