The Kingdom of the Golden Dragon by Isabel Allende

Having finished this while on holiday, it has taken me a while to get round to blogging it...
Kingdom of the Golden Dragon is the second in a trilogy for early teens. Having read the first, The City of Beasts, a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it, I was glad to find this in the library after a few searches.
Unfortunately, it didn't live up to expectation. It wasn't a bad book but no where near as good as I remember the first one (this of course may be memory, anticipation etc etc building it up too much but...). It is still a fun romp of the vaguely fantastical sort though. It just suffers from being a little too cheesy as much as anything. And from trying to be accesible for people who haven't read the first one which is always a problem. You are constantly being reminded how Alex was renamed "Jaguar" and how Nadia knows how to "talk with her heart". It gets a little tedious.
I don't really have all that much to say about it. It wasn't a bad book, it was enjoyable in places but left me a bit bland and disappointed. Hey ho.
I just have to decide whether to read the third one now...