If you're new here, why not subscribe to our email updates or follow us on Facebook? You can also add us to your Google Reader. Thanks for visiting! Long-time readers of this site will know that Ive been on the fence about this best-selling series by Michael Scott. Though theyre packed with myriad ingredients that typically result in an exemplary,...

Its been a few months since I read the previous installments in this series, and I suspect that allowing such a gap between books isnt the best way to go about these. Scotts books are action-packed, with each book taking place over roughly a day, so it can be a little odd and Narnia-esque to come back to them after several months to find...

  Rumours have long abounded that the 14th century alchemist and scrivener Nicholas Flamel is alive and well, thanks to his getting his hands on an elixir of immortality. And in Michael Scotts world, this rumours arent mere hearsay: Nick is indeed living large (or as large as a mousy bookshop owner might live). But now that evil wizard John...

Its a simple fact of young adult literature that if you want to get things moving right off of the bat, you need a prophecy. Better yet, an ambiguous prophecy. Better still? An ambiguous prophecy that applies to twins. Series such as Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and myriad others have rested firmly on the narrative possibilities opened by a prophecy, and...