book review: The Sorceress

taken from Goodreads:

"Book Three in the New York Times bestselling series.

Nicholas Flamel's heart almost broke as he watched his beloved Paris crumble before him. The city was destroyed by Dee and Machiavelli, but Flamel played his own role in the destruction. Sophie and Josh Newman show every sign of being the twins of prophecy, and Flamel had to protect them and the pages from the Dark Elders.

But Nicholas grows weaker with each passing day. Perenelle is still trapped in Alcatraz, and now that Scatty has gone missing, the group is without protection. Except for Clarent—the sister sword to Excalibur. But Clarent’s power is unthinkable, its evil making it nearly impossible to use without its darkness seeping into the soul of whoever wields it.

If he hopes to defeat Dee, Nicholas must find an Elder who can teach Josh and Sophie the third elemental magic—Water Magic. The problem? The only Elder who can do that is Gilgamesh, and he is quite, quite insane."

This is another YA fantasy series that I've been following from the start, and I'm always eager to see the next installment. For round #3, I think Scott has redeemed himself; I thought the first novel was great, but the second one was a little bit of a let-down for me. That's not to say that there aren't some issues with this one, but overall, the good outweighs the bad.

The good: When it comes to bringing in new characters based on mythology and historical figures, I think Scott nailed it with this novel. Not only are these characters intriguing, but Scott's perspective and character-building moves beyond what we know and imagines an all-too-believable life for them. I love when a writer can deftly take what we know about a character and combines it with a "what if?" I also think Scott has done a good job of pushing relationships and character motivation farther in this novel. As I mentioned in a previous review, I like the fact that Scott's characters are all three-dimensional and that his good guys aren't all good, and his bad guys aren't all bad. This means that there's some questioning and doubt going on as far as motivation and purpose are concerned, and that's one of the things that can really pull me into the story.

The bad: Scott has three or four storylines going on here; normally that wouldn't bother me, but there are one or two that just seem tacked on, as though he'd forgotten about those characters right up until the end. A few of the characters are obviously introduced just to move the plot along, and when they come up against the really strong characters, it just shows how poorly developed they are. That's something that could've been prevented, I think.

I think Scott should be praised for writing a YA fantasy series that follows in the wake of Harry Potter without being weak or derivative. I've seen mention that there are still three more books in this series, so I'm excited to see where Scott takes his characters next.

Comments

[Eve]

Ohh I am glad to see you liked this one! I actually am waiting for a review copy of it to arrive in the mail from the publisher! I can't wait to read it. :)