Takeaway: Quite a recovery for the series. Probably best book so far. Very interesting cliff hanger.
Purchase Links: Hardcover, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook
As I get older, I have less and less interest in long series. Maybe it is impatience. Maybe it is justs that there are so many good books. But I do still read series fiction. In part it is because a long series can develop characters in ways that traditional single novels cannot. But series are often very uneven. After book four, I was almost read to drop this series. I felt like book four was just treading water.
Book 5 was much better. It really developed the story, gave lots of depth to the characters (I really like that the good and bad characters are not just two dimensional characters.) The twins at the center of the story also were characterized better this book. The last book I complained about the lack of motivation for the actions, but this book was much better about that.
Like Neil Gaiman’s American Gods these books draw heavily on world wide mythology and historical characters (which in these books are often immortals.) If you are looking for a series that you (or your teen) would like to read over the summer I would really recommend this one. This is a young adult series but very readable by adults. It is also free of sex and has only an occasional moderate use of language. There is violence and death, but appropriate for young teens.
This is the first book I have listened to in audio format. All the rest I have read in Kindle. The kindle books are all lendable, so if you have a kindle and would like to borrow them, let me know in the comments.
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My posts on the other books in the series: The Alchemyst (Book 1), The Magician and The Sorceress (Books 2 and 3), The Necromancer (Book 4), and the short story The Death of Joan of Arc that is not part of the official series, but is really just a teaser to keep people interested in the series. The first book in this series was my very first book review post and the real start of this blog.