Blog #2 Gideon: The Cutpurse

The name of my book that I read for the month of September is called Gideon: The Cutpurse. Linda Buckley-Archer wrote it. Linda lives in England with her husband and her two children. Gideon: The Cutpurse is the first of a trilogy and it is Linda’s first novel. Gideon: The Cutpurse is about Peter Schock and Kate Dyer who get sucked into the year 1763 by Kate’s older brothers antigravity machine. They land just as The Tar Man, the stories villain is passing by. He steals the antigravity machine fascinated by it’s powers and gives it to his boss. It is unfortunate because when the children got to 1763 they were knocked out by the force and were unable to remember what happened. Now since the antigravity machine is gone, Kate and Peter are going to have to find a way to fend for themselves in this new world.

The story starts off when Peter wakes up on a Saturday morning but is disappointed to hear that his father is leaving on a business meeting when he was supposed to take Peter out for his birthday. He was going to take him to an English Premier League soccer match, which Peter was looking forward to for a long time. This is when Peter got very upset and the last word that Peter’s dad heard his son say was, “I hate you!” Peter is driven up to a relative’s farm and meets Kate Dyer there. Soon after, Peter and Kate are taken to the lab where Kate’s older brother is working on an antigravity machine. Unfortunately Kate brings her dog and the dog runs away through the lab and out into the hall. Peter and Kate follow the dog but hit a switch. The switch kicks the antigravity machine into action and sends Peter and Kate into a new year with the only witness being the dog. The force of the landing knocks Kate and Peter out. This is when the Tar Man comes and takes the machine. (The machine being the only known way back home). Gideon who had witnessed the entrance of the kids was instantly blown away by the scene and decided to hang back out the way. A few hours later when the kids had woken, Gideon builds the courage and comes to the aid of the kids. The kids explain to Gideon what had happened and he is a bit more stunned but he decides to help to try and get the machine back. While this was happening to Peter and Kate, Their families had both hired an inspector who was totally clueless as to what happened to the children. Soon after the inspector was hired he was forced to quit the job due to no evidence what so ever.


Back 243 years, over the next few weeks the kids travel by Gideon’s carriage towards England 1763. Over the course of the time the kids gain a strong friendship with Gideon and with each other. Gideon teaches them many skills necessary like how to ride a horse, how to catch a fish and most importantly hot to avoid highwaymen. When the group gets to England they meet up with Lord Luxon who is The Tar Man’s boss. He is a decent man who is aware that both the Tar Man and Gideon want the antigravity machine. He sets up a race from his estate to the Tempest House. The Tempest House is just a little storage house about 20 miles from England and was where Lord Luxon was keeping the machine. Both Gideon and The Tar Man accepted but both contestants tried to cheat. The Tar Man put snails in Gideon’s horse’s hooves and Gideon fed poison herbs to the Tar Man’s horse. At the end of the race it was Gideon who came in first after the Tar Man attacked him. Although Gideon was beaten up the Tar Man’s horse collapsed because of the herbs. Gideon won the machine and after all the hardships that the group went through it was time to say goodbye. They just decided to flip the switch just like the way it had taken them to 1763. The idea works and the machine begins to shoot out bright white lights. Just as Peter and Kate are about to depart Peter decides he cannot leave without hugging Gideon but at that moment the Tar Man makes a surprising entry and takes Peter’s place beside the machine. Gideon whips Peter towards his ride home but it is too late. Kate, the machine, and the Tar Man are gone leaving Peter behind. This is where the first of the trilogy ends.

The book was written in the third person format just like my last book that I wrote about. (The People of Sparks). The book was very descriptive and the plot was interesting but I found the book itself was hard to follow. Because the point of view kept switching from Peter to Kate to the parents to Gideon I had to re-read bits and didn’t understand much of the book. I could relate Gideon: The Cutpurse to anything that has any sort of time travel in it which is many things. For example, there is a series called Pendragon (best book series ever!!!) about a boy named Bobby that travel’s to different, “Territories” and different times on Earth. Anyway it’s very complicated how it works but it’s an awesome series.

I think Linda could have made the transitions from person to person easier to follow. Also I think it was too descriptive as I would regularly lose concentration while reading. I would not recommend this book to anyone because of this but it has a great storyline to it. Despite what I just said I think I will continue reading the series because I want to know if Peter will get rescued. Great first book Linda!!!!