If you haven’t read The Alchemyst or The Magician, I strongly suggest you avoid this review and the inevitable spoilers that will result. Be a smart reader! Don’t ruin your books!!! :)
Sophie and Josh Newman suddenly find themselves in London, after leaving Paris behind in shambles. Dr. John Dee and his cohorts are still after them – and the final pages of the Book of Abraham the Mage, the pages required for the Final Summoning.
Since the Dark Elders are determined to regain their power and access to the human race, they will not rest until those pages are found, and Sophie and Josh’s prophesied abilities are in their hands instead of Nicholas Flamel’s.
In the meantime, the twins are racing to find a moment to time-out and take in the new stunning skills they suddenly have. But Flamel believes their only hope in defeating Dee is to find someone willing to teach Sophie and Josh the third elemental magic – Water.
That’s all I’m going to give right now, I think.
I’ll admit my expectations were higher this time around because I liked The Magician so much more than The Alchemyst. So, I was looking forward to The Sorceress, since the last one cemented my interest in the series. Plus the relentless adventure of the series lured me that much more so since the book I read before this one was Twice Upon a Time: Beauty and the Beast, and it was sadly, for me, a disheartening foray into tedium.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the refresher I hoped it would be.
Initially it still held intrigue – there was a new city, new characters (especially one great one I don’t want to spoil for you – but it was awesome!), and the stakes still felt very high. But I was missing Scatty, Francis and Joan from the get-go – they were my favorite characters.
The main reason I wasn’t real pleased with this particular book was that it’s essentially one long, drawn out battle taking place in one place nearly the entire 487 pages! Sure, we sometimes get to spend time with Perry Flamel, who is still imprisoned on Alcatraz, and the occasional point of view of other people, but overall we’re stuck at this long-winded fight, which feels like it takes an eternity, at what originally was a cool castle of cars.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not bad. It’s probably a preference thing. The action is great, but in my opinion it lacked substance, and sometimes, logic. I kept waiting to move on to the briefly mentioned mad man that may teach them Water Magic, which sounded far more interesting, but everything just seemed to be taking forever.
With the lack of electricity that The Magician brought, I find my expectations for The Necromancer (book four) lowered once more. So far the series is coming across as uneven for me – which is sad. Hopefully it’ll pick up again and I can enjoy all three of the remaining books in the series.
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