Angie Sage

It feels like so many of my favorite series are ending :( I was so excited to get this audiobook because I love the world of Septimus Heap. I think Angie Sage has created an unique and creative magical world and her use of language is just terrific. She has some of the most intelligent humor I've ever seen in a book intended for this age of child. Sage assumes that the person reading her books is intelligent and never talks down to her audience. I love that. This is one of my top audiobooks show more so far this year. Gerard Doyle does a fantastic job narrating. I loved seeing Septimus and Jenna grow and take charge of their lives (even though they're just 15). At the end of the day, I was pleased where Sage ended the series (even though I still want more).

If you haven't started these books, I highly recommend them. show less

A fun book that doesn't take itself too seriously, and a promising start to a series: I'm looking forward to seeing whether the sequels build effectively on this beginning. In some ways, it's standard fare for fantasy aimed at young people. It annoyingly equates parents/origins with the answer to "Who am I?" and has a restoration-of-the-monarchy-equals-good thing going on. It has some interesting quirks, though. Here are two:

1) It's nonsexist ("wizard" isn't even a gendered term! and there's show more some background grumbling about the evil administration having barred women from acting as judges).

2) It doesn't kill off the central child characters' parents, or even make them neglectful and/or incompetent. Instead, without comment, it builds a world in which children simply have greater autonomy than in our world. On a number of occasions, an adult advises a course of action and a child simply rejects it, and that decision stands. It's a really neat way to go, and I'm interested to see whether and how that develops in future installments.

I do find it annoying that words associated with magic appear in bold text. What's with that? And the bit at the end that follows up on various minor characters' fates leaves readers on a weaker note than just stopping at the end of the main narrative. show less

I love Angie Sage’s _Septimus Heap_ series, so I’ve been eyeing this new book, but I was leery, because I thought it might be too dark for me.

Alex is a wonderful heroine with a mysterious background who opens the story by scrying a “monster” in her hex stones for a boy in the marketplace. (I loved who the monster turned out to be and all the other twists that are paid off later in this story.) “Seeds” for upcoming books are hinted at throughout the book and I’m looking forward show more to finding out what happens in Book Two.

There’s a Cinderella feeling to the Alex’s home life that takes an interesting and hopeful twist that reminds me why I like Sage’s books so much. She’s generous and forgiving to her characters even while she’s throwing a variety of dangerous magical creatures at them so they have to run for their lives while they face up to past mistakes. None of this underlying story fabric feels mechanical or moralistic, because Sage is a consummate storyteller. She makes me want to know what will happen to every character in the story--and she doesn’t disappoint.

Which is why I’m looking for the second book now even though I’m a bit perturbed with the wily old enchanter’s choice at the very end of this book! Where is that Book Two? show less

I remember reading this at a young age many, many moons ago. It was refreshing and felt new- it wasn't too psychologically complex so it was easy to follow and understand. I remember this book being more centralized around the human characters and there weren't that many creatures in it. I only mention this because normally one thing I look to 'check off boxes on my list' is if it is creature heavy because that's important for me. The vocabulary level is at least middle school level. The show more plot is well paced and the characters are quite likeable. Even if it didn't check off all my boxes, I still really enjoyed it. I always thought it was a series that more people didn't know about- but I'm happy to see there's a large amount of people on this site that know of this book series! It's quite a charismatic read and also satisfies fantasy lovers who feel they need something a bit different (at least, that's how I felt when I started it) show less