Every bibliophile has wanted to step into their favorite book occasionally, if nothing else to watch the story unfold before their eyes. 
 And Mechthild Glaser clearly knows this, because she wrote an entire book that revels in the idea of entering and interacting with the characters and worlds of various (public domain) books. "The Book Jumper" blends together elements of fantasy, mystery and romance into a single whimsical little tale, all about a girl who does what every devoted reader secretly wants to do. 
 Fleeing their personal woes in Germany, Amy Lennox and her mother Alexis travel to the Scottish isle of Stormsay, where Amy's grandmother Lady Mairead Lennox holds court in a vast manor house. Lady Mairead is all too willing to welcome them there... but only if Amy agrees to read while she stays at Lennox House. And soon, Amy finds out what that means -- she is a book jumper, who has the power to leap into the stories that she reads. 
 Then a body washes up on shore -- it's Sherlock Holmes from "The Hound of the Baskervilles," who was a personal friend of fellow book jumper Will. And he's been murdered. At the same time, the books are being ravaged by a thief who is stealing the fundamental ideas of them -- the White Rabbit, the Little Prince's rose, Dorothy's cyclone, a monster from "The Odyssey," and so on. But to uncover the identity of the thief, Amy must dig up the old secrets of Stormsay, and place herself in deadly danger. 
 "The Book Jumper" is a book that rides on a wave of whimsy and bibliophilia, almost like a young-adult version of "Inkheart" in reverse. Mechthild Glaser was clearly having a blast when she wrote this story, especially in crafting a sort of all-books dimension where characters hang out together in an in-between zone (such as Young Werther being tormented by the hags from "Macbeth"), drinking ink and fully aware of their status as fictional characters. 
 And Glaser writes in a style that befits that kind of story: breezy, nimble and overflowing with affection for the books that Amy loves enough to jump into. However, she also makes her story grow progressively darker after the halfway point, with the stakes becoming far more serious than missing fictional elements -- there are stabbings, thefts of a burned manuscript, and a chilling climax that ties together most of the plot threads in a bittersweet fashion. 
 However, the book is rather fuzzy about some of the details -- for instance, we never hear what the book-jumpers are protecting the literature FROM (termites? Damp?), and the rather abrupt ending leaves (really, it could have used a few more chapters) some dangling plot threads (such as the financial woes of both clans, and the question of whether Amy and Alexis will leave the island). 
 Amy is a pretty likable heroine whom any reader will probably identify with -- she's awkward and bookish, and currently still smarting from a social-media-based betrayal involving nude pictures. Her mother Alexis sort of fades in significance when the other book jumpers appear -- bratty Betsy and Will, a boy tormented by his own mistakes in book-jumping. There's also the comic relief in the form of Werther, who pines after Amy but also seems to have a good heart under his moping and prissiness. 
 "The Book Jumper" is a fantasy-romance for people who adore books -- not just the experience of reading them, but the characters and the vicarious experiences. For bibliophiliacs who love a little whimsy.