The new adventure novel by Toronto author and illustrator J.C. Mills (who wrote the fantasy trilogy The Goodfellow Chronicles) is a quest story in the classic vein. It features a young hero who discovers his identity and destiny during a transformative journey, a wise older man who takes him under his wing, and, of course, a nefarious nemesis lurking in the shadows.

Like many heroes, the sympathetically drawn teen narrator, Joseph Allenby, is a lonely misfit, at odds wherever he is. At home, he’s at the mercy of a blustering bully of a father. At school, he’s mocked for being “slow off the mark.” Drawn by a yearning he can’t explain, he finds refuge at the town’s marina. There he meets up with his mentor, Zen (who’s reminiscent of Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda, especially in his facility for platitudinous philosophizing), an aging hippie who travels the world in a graceful sailboat called the Raconteur.

Zen fills Joseph’s ears with fascinating lore about the travels and travails of 14th-century Prince Henry of Scotland, who voyaged to the Maritimes with the Holy Grail cup to keep it out of the clutches of men who, as Obi-wan would say, have gone over to the dark side.

Mills has come up with an ingenious and touching twist on the fate of the Holy Grail in this novel. Yet despite her intriguing take, the plot is slight, seldom generating the kind of intense involvement and velocity you’d expect. The story, slow to get its sea legs, is lacking in adventure except for one edge-of-the-seat chase sequence. Mills’s didactic streak further hampers the flow of the storytelling: themes are laid out like carpet runners, and Zen’s tales seem, for the most part, less like Scheherazade and more like factoid-filled mini-lectures.