Tenth in the series, and definitely better if you've read at least the first book and a couple others in the series. It's a long book, and there's not a lot happening for most of it except some traveling and conversation. I liked how Duane dealt with the magical contest idea and made it into a science fair. I also liked that she's finally showing that all these wizards are still just human, and aren't all wise wonderful patient smart etc. And along with that, the teens are almost acting like teens and not mini-adults. And using the 3 wizards as mentors and not competitors was perfect...I loved Dairine's resentment that she never got to compete, but she stepped up and did her best to get Mehrnaz to the finish line. Actually I thought Dairine was more interesting than either Kit or Nita; I've found her annoying in the past but not this time. A loose thread gets tied up here for Dairine, that's obviously coming from the beginning, and as far as Nita and Kit's relationship if Duane never writes more this is a nice place to leave it.
So that said, I was impatient for more to happen. From the beginning of the book Nita has some dire precognitive dreams, which led me in completely the wrong direction - I still don't understand why that imagery was used for the solution Nita eventually saw. This is a really long book for so few events.
So that said, I was impatient for more to happen. From the beginning of the book Nita has some dire precognitive dreams, which led me in completely the wrong direction - I still don't understand why that imagery was used for the solution Nita eventually saw. This is a really long book for so few events.
