The Magician by Michael Scott is the second book in the series, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. It picks up with our group now in Paris having narrowly escaped the forces of Dr. Dee in Ojai. They find themselves in what appears to be a basement room that they quickly discover is in the Basilica de Sacre-Cœur which Nicholas claims is always open. As they attempt to leave they realize the time change means it actually is closed so they set off the alarms. Now they find themselves on the run from the police, specifically the DGSE, which is led by an ally of Dr. Dee, Machiavelli. Roving the streets of Paris they don’t necessarily know where to go next or who to trust when they don’t entirely trust each other. Josh is more upset than ever about the growing differences between him and Sophie and as such more and more distrustful of Flamel because of it. Not knowing who to trust Nicholas reaches out to the witch of Endor who arranges for a friend to meet them. Soon they find themselves helped by the Comte de Saint-Germain and his wife, Joan of Arc.
I feel like a huge part of this series is seeing how many famous historical names they can sprinkle in there and claim are still alive. It does make it rather amusing at times as I try to recognize the different names. Might make for an interesting basis for a history course. The book itself is pretty good and I did enjoy it but I also felt like there were a lot of similarities with the first one. Not necessarily a bad thing though. A big repetition is how fast-paced the book is as the entire story takes place in the space of just two or three days. There are very few books I have read that are that fast. Considering everything that seems to happen in the course of those few days I am rather surprised as it definitely feels like it should be longer. It makes me wonder if the characters are just going to crash one of these days. In terms of the characters I am actually enjoying getting to know them even if there are a few I still find intriguing and want to know more about. We see a lot of Josh and Sophie’s perspectives and in this case quite a bit of Machiavelli’s as well but we see very little of Nicholas and none of Scatty’s and both are characters I feel like are hiding a lot. Mind you I also get the feeling that what they are hiding will eventually be revealed. It does set the stage pretty good for the next book and leaves with a bit of a cliffhanger but a good addition to what has the potential to be a good series so it gets four out of five stars from me.
As you have probably gathered, this is a teen fantasy novel so it would hold the most appeal for fantasy readers who fall into that age range. I will also suggest that it would hold limited appeal for older readers who also enjoy fantasy, much like myself. There is some violence but nothing overly graphic and nothing I would be concerned about for the age range. I also didn’t notice anything else that might be potentially problematic for readers. However, I would not recommend it for readers younger than about ten and I would heavily suggest that you read the first book before trying this one. Either way let me know what you think in the comments.