Is magic real?!

Son of Shadow written by John Lenahan @johnlenahan

Published by: Lightning books @EyeAndLightning

Published on: 25th July 2022

ISBN: 9781785633010 Price: £9.99

First line: “Look, kid, just tell me what you did with the coin and we can make this all go away.”

Genre: mystery, magic, portals

Age: 10+

What’s it all about? A young man is arrested for performing magic in our world (the Real World), and he can’t explain how he has managed to do it. It’s not just sleight of hand, but real magic. Gradually, his memories start to come back to him, and he works out firstly who he is (Fergal or Doe), secondly what he is doing (searching for his friend, Ruby) and thirdly where he is from (Tir na Nog). The book is split into three sections, 1: Amnesia, 2: Remembering, 3: The Rescue. I don’t want to say too much more, as I really enjoyed coming to the story fresh and not knowing the previous trilogy, which involves the young man’s father.

Why should I read it? I found this story a really enjoyable read. I liked the continuing mystery in the first section of the book where Fergal is confounded by his own abilities as much as the people around him. This brings forth some comedic situations, like where he discovers that he can speak other languages and his response is ‘apparently’, and everyone is convinced they can work out what happens to a missing dime until…they can’t. I like how the speech is written- it made it easy to connect to the character. I think Part 1 was my favourite. It made me feel like I was watching an American cop drama or the X-files. Part 2 is more like The Lord Of The Rings, with Doe returned to his own world and we find out who he is and what his life is like. Its a typical fantasy novel. Not having read the precious trilogy I found the names of all the family members a little hard to keep up with, but I’ve read Game of Thrones, so it’s not too bad. I really missed having a map or family tree at the front of the book to refer to. I feel the third section tails off a little – action is so hard to write and it keep things real. Overall though I enjoyed the book and would definitely be interested in reading the next part in the trilogy. I’m a slow reader, I think, but managed to read this in a week, so I think that’s a good sign of how it kept me interested throughout.

Thanks to the WriteReads for the review copy.