by Eric Elfman
First published 2014
Nick's family moves into a crumbling Victorian house after a fire destroys their home. The fourteen-year-old climbs to his new attic bedroom and gets smacked in the head by a flying toaster. The attic holds dozens of bizarre antiques that seem to move on their own. Nick's father decides to sell everything at a garage sale to make quick cash. Soon Nick befriends local kids Mitch, Caitlin, and Vincent, and they discover the sold objects possess incredible powers. The attic itself acts like a magnetic vortex that pulls strange events toward it. Nick realizes the genius inventor Nikola Tesla stored his final creations in this exact spot as part of a mathematical prediction. Now Nick and his friends must track down every item from the garage sale before a secret society called the Accelerati can steal them. The physicists want to use Tesla's inventions to change the future for their own purposes. Nick would rather blend in as the new kid in town, but Tesla's legacy forces him into a dangerous game.
Genres: science-fiction, adventure, fantasy, young-adult
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, whimsical
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Victorian House
Period: 20th-century
246 pages · Kindle Edition · Little, Brown Books for Young Readers