Troubletwisters / Garth Nix and Sean Williams / 293 pages / April Challenge Rain

Hector Shield is a treasure-seeker, hunting lost masterpieces for auction houses and galleries.  Susan Shield is a paramedic.  Their twelve year old twins, Jaide and Jack, are Troubletwisters.  When their home is destroyed by a fluke explosion caused by a rod brought back by their father from his travels, the twins are whisked off to their Grandma X and her most unusual abode.  Here they encounter disappearing rooms, mad swarms of bugs, rabid dogs, talking cats, and memory-erasing hot chocolate...among other thing.  As trouble-twisters, Jack and Jaide have special gifts.  Jaide can fly with the help of the wind, and Jack is a shadow walker.  Together, without any training, they battle evil to save their Grandma and each other.  Evil wants to assimilate all that is good.  "It always comes, whenever it can find a chink between its world and ours."  This is a creative adventure tale of the battle between good and evil, stressing the importance of listening, learning, practicing, paying heed,...and love.