Review: Magyk (Septimus Heap #1) by Angie Sage

Reposted due to the Great Blogger Apocalypse of 2011
Synopsis (Goodreads):

The seventh son of the seventh son, aptly named Septimus Heap, is stolen the night he is born by a midwife who pronounces him dead. That same night, the baby's father, Silas Heap, comes across a bundle in the snow containing a new born girl with violet eyes. The Heaps take this helpless newborn into their home, name her Jenna, and raise her as their own. But who is this mysterious baby girl, and what really happened to their beloved son Septimus?

My Thoughts:  There were times while reading this book, especially during the first quarter of it, that I thought it was almost too cutesy for me. I was distracted by the magical words that were bolded throughout the text (is that just a quirk of the ebook version or is it present in the physical format as well?) (Heck, it wasn't just my copy that had randomly bolded words, was it?)- it seemed like I'd just start getting into the flow of the page and I'd hit a slew of bolding that messed with my frigging brain or something and I'd come to a grinding halt. If I'm just the unlucky recipient of a Randomly Bolded copy, than feel free to ignore this. However, if this was intentional (and due to the fact that it was always the magical words and spells that were bolded I'm leaning toward it being intentional) it was distracting and unnecessary.

Yes, I was able to get past that, but I found that it caused me to take a lot longer to get into the book that I think I would have otherwise.

Once things got past the cute stage (I guess I should mention that I have a low tolerance for Extreme Cuteness - the two of us just don't get on all that well) and the action started up, I really began to enjoy what I was reading. The mystery of who Septimus is wasn't terribly difficult to crack, although for younger readers it might come as a big surprise.

Ultimately, the charm of this book is found in the fantasy elements and the fast-paced action. The characters were fun and I have this niggling suspicion that Septimus and Jenna are going to make a rollicking good team in later books. I liked the darker elements of the story (death by muddy suffocation just sounds terribly) but the bad things that happen are, more often than not, alluded to without going into graphic detail. This is a book for teens - younger teens, in my opinion - and I think they'll enjoy the dark aspects even without massive amounts of blood and guts.

Fun and quirky, this was a story that took me a bit to get into but once I found my groove I really enjoyed it.

More books by Angie Sage

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Magyk was a free Kindle download I picked up on 01/23/11.