Only for the Weekend

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Poor Elizabeth feels double-dumped. First her parents left on a sudden
business trip, sending her to stay with her grandparents for the
weekend. Then her grandparents strand her at a strange farm because they
too have a business matter to take care of. Now Elizabeth is stuck with
Katie and Daniel, two kids she doesn’t much like. All Katie wants to
do is talk about horses; her brother Daniel keeps saying mean things
about Elizabeth’s grandfather. Elizabeth wants to know what is going
on with her parents and grandparents just as much as she wants to get
away from Katie and Daniel. And, if life isn’t complicated enough,
some mysterious man named Sloan is asking her to pass secret messages to
her parents without letting her grandfather find out.

Although Dicks manages to build the foundation for an interesting tale,
certain flaws mar the finished product. The narrative drags at the
beginning, picks up in the middle, but fails to come together at the end
because too many loose threads are tied together with one-sentence
resolutions. A short dream sequence is possibly the best writing in the
novel, but this one outstanding segment is actually superfluous to the
storyline. Not a first-choice purchase.