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Loading... The Sinister Booksellers of Bath (2023)by Garth Nix
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Roughly on par with the first in the series, I thought. Decent. ( ) My wife is a big fan of Nix's Sabriel books, but I had not read anything by him before. This is a sequel to another of his books (The Left-Handed Booksellers of London), but I found that it largely stood on its own, except that it never clearly delineated the difference between left- and right-handed booksellers. Anyway, it's about a secret order of "booksellers" that combat dangerous magical entities; here they have to prevent one particular one from rising up and obtaining great power through sacrificing innocent victims on the solstice. I found it cute and charming without being precious or twee—quite an accomplishment these days. A lot of fun ideas, and I would loop back and read the first book, but it didn't set my world on fire. Susan Arkshaw is trying very, very hard to be normal, while her father wants her to embrace his part of her heritage and meanwhile a map draws Merlin into danger and the only person who could probably help him is Susan and his sister Vivien. Only helping Merlin brings them into a complex serial killer situation and it's only getting more complicated by the day. It's an interesting read with characters who came across as very real and had issues I could understand, having been a teenager at that time. I enjoyed the read, not as much as the first book in the series but still it was a good read. This is a stronger book than The Left-handed booksellers of London, and develops on the first story in a way that dragged me in and kept me riveted. It didn't matter that I'd mostly forgotten the finer details, and that the character names had slipped away, because they were all deftly reintroduced, without a hint of 'As You Know, Bob'. The characters were stronger -- more present on the page -- than I remember from the first one. The mystery plot was beautifully realised, with fascinating nuance. And the world-building, the details that set it firmly in time and place, was very well done. I got earwormed more than once from the playful joking about music, and references to pop songs. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to SeriesAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Fantasy.
Historical Fiction.
Young Adult Fiction.
Young Adult Literature.
HTML:Return to the enchanting world of The Left-Handed Booksellers of London in this sequel by Garth Nix, bestselling master of teen fantasy, where once again a team of booksellers must fight to keep dangerous magic under cover before the stuff of legends destroys our world. There is often trouble of a mythical sort in Bath. The booksellers who police the Old World keep a careful watch there, particularly on the entity that inhabits the ancient hot spring. This time trouble comes from the discovery of a sorcerous map, leading left-handed bookseller Merlin into great danger, requiring a desperate rescue attempt from his sister, the right-handed bookseller Vivien, and art student Susan Arkshaw, who is still struggling to deal with her own recently discovered magical heritage. The map takes the trio to a place separated from this world, maintained by deadly sorcery and guarded by monstrous living statues. But this is only the beginning. To unravel the secrets of a murderous Ancient Sovereign, the booksellers must investigate centuries of disappearances and deaths. If they do not stop her, she will soon kill again. And this time, her _target is not an ordinary mortal. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction 1900- 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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