"An excellent third book of the series!"

In the third book of the Septimus Heap and family story, things start to go south when Silas opens a sealed room in the palace and drags out a picture of a particularly horrid looking queen and her equally horrid pet wrapped around her. Silas was only looking for a quiet place to train his counters. He really opened a can of worms when he unsealed the room.

Then Septimus is lured 500 years into the past in a strange glass. He finds out that he is the new apprentice to Marcellus Pye, a wizard whom Septimus had been extraordinarily enamored with when he found some papers written by Pye.

Now it's up to Jenna and Spit Fyre, the dragon along with Wolf Boy to try to figure out where Septimus went and to try to rescue him. They have no idea what they are getting themselves into. All the while people are succumbing to a horrible sickness that no one can find a cure for and everyone thinks is being carried by rats so they decide to hunt down and kill all of the rats.

Will Jenna, Wolf Boy, Nicko and a new character Snorri with her shapeshifting cat, Ullr figure things out in the nick of time and set things to right? Only time will tell.

I sped read through this fascinating tale and then was sad to see it end. In my opinion, this is a wonderful series and has kept me as anxious to read the next book in the series as the Harry Potter stories have. I highly recommend this one but it is a series that needs to be read in order so as to know what is going on in each sequential book.

Reviewed by Kathy Boswell
Posted February 26, 2007