There was a lovely review for Archibald Lox and the Bridge Between Worlds over on Kiki's Epeolatry a while back. Noting that it's been a while since my last book for younger readers, the reviewer says "I can't believe how much I have missed him doing a children's book until now."

Awwww! I must admit, it's nice to be back with a series for kids. I love my Darren Dash books for adults too, but they've all been stand-alone stories. It's nice to work on a bigger scale, with the space to build slowly and layer in all sorts of levels, twists and surprises. Speaking of which, Kiki also mentioned this in her review:

"Archie is an enigma in itself. Presented as being a normal boy yet being a locksmith in The Merge? Hmm. There's something strange here. He's a puzzle that needs to be solved without a doubt."

Heh heh. Long-time Shansters know that things are very rarely as straightforward in a Darren Shan universe as they might at first seem. Kiki's right, of course -- there's a lot more to Archie than meets the eye, and over the course of the three Volumes I'm going to be gradually revealing more and more about his background and the source of his powers. Why IS he such a natural with the locks? The answers await... in the Merge!

https://bredbybooks.blogspot.com/2020/08/archibald-lox-and-bridge-between-worlds.html

You can read Volume One either as three short books (The Bridge Between Worlds is the first of those) or as one big, collected Volume, called The Missing Princess, on sale as an eBooks, hardback or paperback. You can find out more about that in the November issue of the Shanville Monthly, which also features a cool little competition with VERY rare Archibald Lox proofs up for grabs... https://www.darrenshan.com/news/shanville-monthly