SOLVED. YA Fantasy, dual-timeline, a young bored boy finds a mysterious book. Spoiler ahead. [s]

[Kath]

I've started reading this one a long time ago and never finished it. Now I cannot find what the book was called. It's not much but here is what I remember:

The main character is a boy, not sure about the age but I think a teenager.
The story follows two timelines, the main one where most of the story takes place and one in the past.
I think it was a "low fantasy" set in our world but with magic.
I think the book title contained a name but I'm not sure.
I think I've read it somewhere around 2010-2015.
The book didn't seem very old, the cover looked modern and the writing style didn't seem old-timey.
I think the cover was dark red with gold letters, with no characters on it. It was a Croatian edition, I am pretty sure it was a translation so not sure what the original looked like.

The start of the book goes like this (minor spoilers for the first few pages, I think):

(view spoiler)[The book starts with a bored boy waiting for someone (a female character I think, maybe a sister or a mother) He is in a room with a lot of books (possibly a library) and he is running his hands over the covers. Suddenly he is bitten/cut by something on the shelf. He runs his hands over the covers again and again but finds nothing. Then the character he was waiting for comes in and yells at him for throwing a book on the floor. He is confused but when he looks down he finds a book lying there.

I think he later gets chased by someone. (hide spoiler)]

[Rainbowheart]

The Neverending Story is probably too obvious?

[Kath]

Rainbowheart wrote: "The Neverending Story is probably too obvious?"

No, that's not it.

-Spoiler ahead-

(view spoiler)[ The boy doesn't steal the book (at least not immediately) and he doesn't talk to anyone before the person he was waiting for comes back. He also didn't seem very interested in books. The story also had a sort of dark eerie tone to it. (hide spoiler)]

[Sue]

"So You Want To Be A Wizard"? It's a girl in the library, and something like a thread catches her finger. The book is a wizard's manual, with the above title, but when she checks it out the librarian sees the title as something different. https://www.fantasticfiction.com/d/di...

[Kath]

Sue wrote: ""So You Want To Be A Wizard"? It's a girl in the library, and something like a thread catches her finger. The book is a wizard's manual, with the above title, but when she checks it out the librari..."

No, unfortunately, that's not it either.

[Capn]

I'm so sorry - I don't speak any Croatian. But I did a quick WorldCat search (kw="library", "book", su="fantasy", last 25 years, Croatian, fiction, juvenile) and just two books came up. I can't tell if they're close or totally way off the mark, but just in case:

Demon školske knjižnice

&

The Library of Secrets: The Giant Mistake - Oops, nevermind: this one has an English ed.!:
Twelve year old Sophia and her younger brother Mark find a mysterious book at the local library and take it home. At first, it seems like just an ancient collection of stories, but the children soon discover that it is a portal to another world, Almation – and before they know it, they are trapped in it. To get back home, Sophia and Mark will have to solve many puzzles, face unexpected dangers and make equally unexpected friends – but maybe even that is not enough…

[Kath]

Capn wrote: "I'm so sorry - I don't speak any Croatian. But I did a quick WorldCat search (kw="library", "book", su="fantasy", last 25 years, Croatian, fiction, juvenile) and just two books came up. I can't tel..."

Unfortunately, I do not think it's either of those. While the book was in Croatian I think it was a translation from some other language. (Possibly either English or German)

Thank you for helping with the search. :)

[Capn]

So it's probably worth having a look through this list, then:

Book-Jumping and Book-Travelling
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Hopefully something will seem familiar - the cover you remember may not be on GR :(

[Kath]

Capn wrote: "So it's probably worth having a look through this list, then:

Book-Jumping and Book-Travelling
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Hopefully something w..."

I actually do not know if the story was about travelling between worlds using a book. From what I remember it was not used like that but I didn't finish reading it so I can't be entirely sure.

I just remember that it would randomly switch to a different timeline (Now that I think about it, the pages of that "past" timeline might have been decorated with a dark border, but I might be mistaking it for some other book)

But I will check the link, maybe it is there. If I find it I will post the title.

[Capn]

Tilly and the Bookwanderers is red and gold, anyway (it's also on the list). :)

Good luck - let us know! Someone else might suggest a title here in the meantime.

[Kath]

Capn wrote: "Tilly and the Bookwanderers is red and gold, anyway (it's also on the list). :)

Good luck - let us know! Someone else might suggest a title here in the meantime."

I don't think it's that one, I'm pretty sure it was much darker (the story was sort of serious and eerie). And the main character was male.

[Kath]

I FOUND IT!!!

I was looking at the Goodreads page for "Here, There Be Dragons" and it just popped up in the "Readers also enjoyed"

The book is Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton

[Capn]

Oh wonderful! :D Glad to hear it - enjoy!

[Rainbowheart]

Yay, glad you found it!

[Kath]

Thank you everyone for helping! :D