Magyk by Angie Sage

Let's not beat around the bush. Angie Sage has clearly been inspired by the world of Harry Potter, which makes it somehow impossible to review her work without comparing it to J.K. Rowling. Since Rowling's phenomenal series exploded across the world of publishing, there has been an onslaught of pre-adolescent youngsters with magical powers and unusual names popping up in the children's sections of bookstores and libraries everywhere. Charlie Bone. Percy Jackson. Artemis Fowl. And now, Septimus Heap. Considering the amount of lame Read More

Flyte by Angie Sage

As the sequel to Angie Sage's first novel Magyk, a pre-teen wizarding fantasy heavily influenced by the Harry Potter series, Flyte picks up a year after the events of the first story, in which the magical Heap family discovered several amazing secrets about their past. Namely, that their adopted daughter Jenna was in fact a princess and that a young nameless boy they picked up in their adventures was their long-lost son Septimus, the highly gifted seventh son of a seventh son. Together, the two siblings found a beautiful Dragon Boat, defeated the evil wizard DomDaniel, and rescued the ExtraOrdinary Wizard — with Septimus becoming Marcia Overstrand's Apprentice in the process.

It seems everything was looking up for the Heap... Read More

Physik by Angie Sage

I gave this book's predecessors rather lukewarm reviews, finding them a little too simplistic and reliant on the success of Harry Potter, with rather weak villains and too many periphery characters to keep track of. However, all that changes with the third installment in the series, which has a sophisticated plot with an intriguing resolution, a truly unnerving villain and a very real sense of danger and suspense. The protagonists of the series are Septimus and Jenna Heap, the former the Apprentice to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard and youngest son of the Heap family, the latter a long-lost princess raised by the Heaps who has recently found her heritage as future-ruler of the land. Together, they make a good team and are friendly, likeable and intelligent characters in their own right.

An ongoing joke of t... Read More