The Magician’s Tower by Shawn Thomas Odyssey

The mystery was a bit more predictable here, and the book overall took on a much more Harry Potter-slant than the first, but still a tremendously charming and engaging supernatural mystery, ostensibly for children, but definitely enjoyable for those well past that stage in life. In this installment of the series, Oona Crate enters a competition held every five years to solve a riddle that no one in the past few centuries has been able to crack. The competition itself is enthralling, with neat little puzzles, and once again the mysteries have been carefully constructed. Character motivations are believable and often hilarious, such as arch-rival Isadora’s adolescent insistence on stressing the word BOYFRIEND in conversations. The only thing that really took away from this book was the lack of editing for things such as use of the word “assent” when describing an upward motion: very jarring in an otherwise elegantly written book. That said, I gobbled up this book in a day, bought the final installment immediately and am planning on devouring that, as well.