Escape from Zarahemla

I have been a fan of the tennis shoe books since the start. The last in the group have seemed to lose some of the magic. This is the 2nd book in a new story the author started that also used time travel to Book of Mormon times.
Not to give too much away but at the end of this book he basically joins the two story's. Making what was in the last Tennis shoes book even more crowded with almost 15 plot lines if I guess right.
In his authors notes at the end he tells the reader that if you have not read the other 11 books in the other series then you need to in order to get the full story and flavor of the next book which is a sequel to both story lines...not sure how I felt about that.
If you love Tennis shoes and like the first Zarahemla book then read this...if not then you can skip it and pick up book 12 without much problem I would think since all the story lines are hard to keep straight any way.