Tag Archives: fantasy

Magyk

Book Review of Magyk (Septimus Heap #1), by Angie Sage

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I borrowed a copy of Magyk: Septimus Heap, by Angie Sage from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
Enter the world of Septimus Heap, Wizard Apprentice. Magyk is his destiny.

A powerful necromancer plans to seize control of all things Magykal. He has killed the Queen and locked up the Extraordinary Wizard. Now with Darke Magyk he will create a world filled with Darke creatures. But the Necromancer made one mistake. A vital detail he has overlooked means there is a boy who can stop him – the only problem is, the boy doesn’t know it yet.

For the Heap family, life as they know is about to change, and the most fantastically fast-paced adventure of confused identities, magyk and mayhem, begin.

Review:
I am not the intended audience for this book, being far too old. But I rented it to listen to with my 10yo, on a car trip. She quite enjoyed it. I didn’t dislike it, but didn’t fall in love either. While I was entertained, I also found the whole thing obvious and flat.

I’ve seen a somewhat convincing argument that the whole thing is meant to be a Christian parable. I’d never of made the connection on my own (Christian parables seriously not being my thing), but once pointed out, I could see where the reviewer got the idea. If you’re looking for that in a middle grade book, pick this one up. Maybe reading it from that perspective will give the narrative the oooh I felt tit lacked.

All in all, not bad, entertaining in a youthful sort of way. But lacking in enough depth to make me love it. It’s no Harry Potter, that’s for sure, though likely aimed at part of the same demographic.

Allan Corduner did a marvelous job with the audiobook narration though.

Book Review of New Amsterdam, by Elizabeth Bear

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I bought a copy of Elizabeth Bear‘s New Amsterdam.

Description from Goodreads:
Abigail Irene Garrett drinks too much. She makes scandalous liaisons with inappropriate men, and if in her youth she was a famous beauty, now she is both formidable and notorious! She is a forensic sorceress, and a dedicated officer of a Crown that does not deserve her loyalty. Sebastien de Ulloa is the oldest creature she has ever known. He has forgotten his birth-name, his birth-place, and even the year in which he was born, if he ever knew it. But he still remembers the woman who made him immortal. In a world where the sun never sets on the British Empire, where Holland finally ceded New Amsterdam to the English only during the Napoleonic wars, and where the expansion of the American colonies was halted by the war magic of the Iroquois, they are exiles in the new world – and its only hope for justice!

Review:
This is a hard book to review. The writing is lovely, as are the characters. But I find I didn’t like it much, because it wasn’t what I wanted it to be and I completely disliked the ending. How do you separate that out and be objective in the rating of a book? I don’t know that I can. So, I’ll just reiterate, the writing is lovely, as are the characters.

Witch Inheritance

Book Review of Witch Inheritance (Mackenzie Coven Mystery #1), by Sonia Parin

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I downloaded a copy of Sonia Parin‘s Witch Inheritance from Amazon, as a freebie.

Description from Goodreads:
Lexie’s birthday has caught up with her, as have her cousins, Mirabelle Louisa Mackenzie – High Chair of the British Isles and all Circumferential Domains Pertaining to the Mackenzie Coven – and Catherine Marianna Mackenzie, her down under cousin (If she has a title, she’s not telling her). They’ve been sent to remind Lexie of her family obligations and also to give her a birthday gift. The type she can’t return, refuse or exchange. It’s her heritage and it comes with a job she didn’t even apply for. It’s actually more a way of life than a career and it comes with a snazzy new outfit only her cousins can see. Thank goodness for that…

Not surprisingly, Mirabelle and Catherine Mackenzie are short on details and time to explain. In fact, Lexie has less than two days to brush up on her skills and fly to England… at the blink of an eye. The Mackenzie Coven has been enlisted to assist with a rising concern at House St James. It comes in the shape of an inky black fog Lexie calls the menace. It might not be in corporeal form, but it’s somehow managed to murder one St James family member. Now it’s Lexie’s job to make sure it doesn’t strike again, but she’s fallen under a spell. Suddenly she’s tearing off her beloved denim jeans and Rock Hard t-shirt and donning bespoke designer dresses and sipping ‘delish’ champagne. Even her accent has changed and her cousins can’t do anything about it because a covenant prohibits all three Mackenzie Coven witches from gathering in the house together. They must somehow circumvent the seal and guide Lexie through her first official task as a Mackenzie Coven witch and find the murderer before all the heirs meet their end…

Review:
That was…..that was a decent outline of the dialogue for a future book. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like it was then fleshed out into an actual novel (or even a novella). It is literally like 80% dialogue, with no world or character building. The reader is dropped into the middle, characters appear and aren’t introduced or explained, the plot make no sense and the narration is cheesy. I mean, the villainous evil is called the “inky black fog.” And while I sense this was meant to be humorous, it wasn’t. Then the climax arrived abruptly and the book ended on a cliffhanger. I will not be continuing the series.