IMPOSSIBLE FORTRESS

It's 1987. Ronald Reagan is in the White House. Prince and Madonna are on the radio. And Wheel of Fortune hostess Vanna White is on the cover of Playboy.

Billy and his friends are desperate to get hold of a copy, but no shopkeeper is going to sell one to three fourteen-year-old gaming nerds. The only thing for it is a heist of the local shop. But as they set out on their mission to enter one impossible fortress, they have no idea what lies ahead . . .

An Amazon Best Book of February 2017: The Impossible Fortress is one of those books—one of those rare and special few where, once you have finished it, you want all your friends to read it immediately. This is especially true if you grew up in the 1980s, because The Impossible Fortress is a coming-of-age story tucked inside a love letter to that strange and wonderful decade. The novel is set in 1987 when computer games had only recently entered our homes, Jolt cola (the predecessor of modern energy drinks) was still a thing, and Playboy magazine had countless 14-year-old boys across the country trying to get their hands on a copy of the Vanna White (of Wheel of Fortune fame) issue. Billy Martin and his two best friends are three such boys, and their pursuit of the epic magazine leads them to the local office supply store, computer whiz Mary Zelinsky, and a hero’s quest to save a princess. Author Jason Rekulak’s ability to conjure powerful adolescent feelings of friendship, first love, and that difficult place where the two collide, is impressive. Laughter comes from page after page, and some clever surprises too—all of it with a 1980s mixed tape running in the background. --Seira Wilson, The Amazon Book Review