The Crystal Palace Chronicles: 1: Star of Nimrod by Graham Whitlock
What if the past became your future? Join teenager Joe on a rollercoaster adventure travelling back in time to the heyday of Victorian Crystal Palace. Joe is lonely and bored. His best friend moved away, he's stuck looking after his annoying little sister and Dad spends every hour in their struggling restaurant, Paradise. But Joe's world is turned upside down when he discovers a shattered compass among the brambles where the Crystal Palace once stood and time travels through the maze back to 1888. With help from the teenage H. G. Wells and Samuel Coleridge Taylor, daredevil Iris Blondin, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and the Queen of the Gypsies, Joe must foil dangerous diamond thieves to uncover dark secrets about the 'People's Palace'. Standing on boundaries between worlds, it's secrets are tied to the fate of his family. Will Joe be trapped in the past with his new friends, find a way to return to his family or can he somehow have both?