The Bronze Key is the third instalment in the Magisterium series. Picking up a year after book three (The Copper Gauntlet), Callum and his best friends are now entering the third year of their magical training. Callum has now revealed the truth about his soul to his close friends, as well as his frenemy Jasper and his own father, but is still struggling to maintain his anonymity. However, when a Gold Year student is found murdered, Call becomes aware that there may be an extremely dangerous saboteur in his midst.
This novel is my favourite of the series to date. Not only did we see spectacular breakthroughs in character development, but we also were given a diverting sense of mystery for the entire duration of the novel. This novel kept me constantly on my toes, and I managed to finish the novel in just under three hours. One of the hallmarks of a good mystery novel is having a wide range of possible subjects for the specific crime–which was, in this case, murder–but then completely shocking the audience when the true criminal is eventually revealed. I actually had to put the book down for a few moments just to process what was going on in the story, only to ravenously hang onto the last few pages.
Another fascinating element of this book was how all the characters continued to evolve. When the novel began with The Iron Trial, all of the characters were naive, innocent and careless, but with this novel, the growth of all of the characters was evident in every page. The maturity of the characters was, I suppose, inevitable because of the new challenges they were facing, but I was positively surprised by how the characters had different ways of responding to certain things in wake of their earlier experiences that had shaped them.
All in all, I have nothing bad to say about this book–the characters are great, the story was equally entertaining and poignant, and I can’t wait for more.
In the first book of a fantastic new middle-grade series ‘Tilly and the Boookwanderers‘ we follow Matilda ‘Tilly’ Pages, an eleven-year-old book lover who is cared for by her loving grandfather and grandmother in the five-storey London bookshop Pages & Co. Tilly has lived with her grandparents for as long as she could remember, since …
Courtney Summers’ well-written murder mystery is a modern take on the genre. Following the sister of a missing girl and the journalist trying to find her, Sadie’s format is unique, if a little confusing at times. The chapters written from Sadie’s perspective are in first person, but every second chapter is written as a script …
Released to the public on September 3rd of 2018, Violet Grace’s novel The Girl Who Fell tells the tale of Francesca ‘Chess’ Raven, an adolescent girl living with a woman named Gladys after the death of her parents. Chess Raven is a hacker, and becomes swept away in a grand and interesting adventure after the …
Jakob Wegelius’ middle-grade novel The Murderer’s Ape tells the story of Sally Jones, an anthropomorphic gorilla working closely with a man known as ‘The Chief.’ Together, the two journey all around the coastlines and rivers of Europe and its surrounding areas aboard a grand sailing ship known as the Hudson Queen. When a midnight expedition …
Hunting Prince Dracula is a wonderfully haunting and cleverly crafted mystery novel from Kerri Maniscalco, author of Stalking Jack the Ripper. The novel, which involves the same characters from the aforementioned story, instead follows Audrey Rose Wadsworth and her close companion Thomas Creswell as they travel to Romania to enrol in a forensics course held …
For anyone who loves fairy tales with a twist, the Rondo series is the perfect way to escape to a world of magic and mystery. Rodda creates a new layer to the classic formula, drawing from familiar characters such as evil queens, talking animals and mythical creatures, but the addition of two protagonists from the …
Book Review – The Bronze Key
This novel is my favourite of the series to date. Not only did we see spectacular breakthroughs in character development, but we also were given a diverting sense of mystery for the entire duration of the novel. This novel kept me constantly on my toes, and I managed to finish the novel in just under three hours. One of the hallmarks of a good mystery novel is having a wide range of possible subjects for the specific crime–which was, in this case, murder–but then completely shocking the audience when the true criminal is eventually revealed. I actually had to put the book down for a few moments just to process what was going on in the story, only to ravenously hang onto the last few pages.
Another fascinating element of this book was how all the characters continued to evolve. When the novel began with The Iron Trial, all of the characters were naive, innocent and careless, but with this novel, the growth of all of the characters was evident in every page. The maturity of the characters was, I suppose, inevitable because of the new challenges they were facing, but I was positively surprised by how the characters had different ways of responding to certain things in wake of their earlier experiences that had shaped them.
All in all, I have nothing bad to say about this book–the characters are great, the story was equally entertaining and poignant, and I can’t wait for more.
Ratings:
Characters: 9/10
Writing: 8/10
Plot: 10/10
OVERALL RATING: 9.5
Related Posts
Book Review – Tilly and the Bookwanderers by Anna James
In the first book of a fantastic new middle-grade series ‘Tilly and the Boookwanderers‘ we follow Matilda ‘Tilly’ Pages, an eleven-year-old book lover who is cared for by her loving grandfather and grandmother in the five-storey London bookshop Pages & Co. Tilly has lived with her grandparents for as long as she could remember, since …
Book Review – Sadie by Courtney Summers
Courtney Summers’ well-written murder mystery is a modern take on the genre. Following the sister of a missing girl and the journalist trying to find her, Sadie’s format is unique, if a little confusing at times. The chapters written from Sadie’s perspective are in first person, but every second chapter is written as a script …
Book Review – The Girl Who Fell by Violet Grace
Released to the public on September 3rd of 2018, Violet Grace’s novel The Girl Who Fell tells the tale of Francesca ‘Chess’ Raven, an adolescent girl living with a woman named Gladys after the death of her parents. Chess Raven is a hacker, and becomes swept away in a grand and interesting adventure after the …
Book Review – The Murderer’s Ape by Jakob Wegelius
Jakob Wegelius’ middle-grade novel The Murderer’s Ape tells the story of Sally Jones, an anthropomorphic gorilla working closely with a man known as ‘The Chief.’ Together, the two journey all around the coastlines and rivers of Europe and its surrounding areas aboard a grand sailing ship known as the Hudson Queen. When a midnight expedition …
Book Review – Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco
Hunting Prince Dracula is a wonderfully haunting and cleverly crafted mystery novel from Kerri Maniscalco, author of Stalking Jack the Ripper. The novel, which involves the same characters from the aforementioned story, instead follows Audrey Rose Wadsworth and her close companion Thomas Creswell as they travel to Romania to enrol in a forensics course held …
Book Review – Key to Rondo by Emily Rodda
For anyone who loves fairy tales with a twist, the Rondo series is the perfect way to escape to a world of magic and mystery. Rodda creates a new layer to the classic formula, drawing from familiar characters such as evil queens, talking animals and mythical creatures, but the addition of two protagonists from the …