ALL GOOD MAGICIANS COME TO AN END.

Callum Hunt has been both a hero and an outcast.

Now starting his final year at the Magisterium, Call is desperate to find his place at the school, win his friends back, and prove he is a force for good.

But he soon comes face to face with an old enemy, transformed into a being of terrible evil. It must be stopped, and the Magisterium needs Callum’s help.

It is a mission that could save him, or destroy him . . .

Series: Magisterium 5
Genre: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Sword & Sorcery, Young Adult
Publisher: Corgi Books (13th September 2018)
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3 stars)

The Golden Tower is the final book in Holly Black and Cassandra Clare’s Magisterium series. This book concludes the story that started in The Iron Trial, when Callum Hunt was first introduced to magic. It’s Callum’s final year at the Magisterium, and a lot has happened to him and his friends since he started at the school. In this book Callum discovers that an old enemy has returned transformed into a terrible evil, one who is determined to make Call pay. Call is determined to prove that he is a force for good, so when the Magisterium asks him for help he says yes.

It was interesting to return to the world of the Magisterium, to Call and his friends.  The Golden Tower is a good read, and I think fans of the series will enjoy its conclusion, but it just wasn’t a book that really called to me. Don’t get me wrong, the story is appealing and I was curious about how Black and Clare were going to end things. I just wasn’t wowed. There was no real magic, or surprises and it just kind of felt too neat. It’s a good solid read, and it ties-up all the loose ends in the series.

I don’t want to damn The Golden Tower with faint praise. I honestly do think that readers who have followed this series to its conclusion will enjoy this book. They’ll enjoy following Call to the conclusion of his journey, and seeing how far he’s come from the boy first introduced in The Iron Trial: at heart he’s still that same boy, but he’s matured. The plot of the book is very well thought out, and the book is very readable. Once you’ve found your rhythm reading, it’s a very easy story to fall into and enjoy.

I have enjoyed this series, and if you aren’t looking for anything particularly complicated then I think you will too. The Golden Tower is a good solid end to the Magisterium – it dots the i’s and crosses the t’s. And there is nothing wrong with the uncomplicated nature of this book. There are also definitely parallels with the Harry Potter series, and readers of one series will enjoy the other – though I don’t think the Magisterium matures the way the Harry Potter series does in later books. It’s a little sad to say goodbye to everyone, but The Golden Tower brings things to a good conclusion.

* It was only as I collected all the details for this post that I realised I hadn’t read the fourth book in the series, but honestly I did not notice a gap between the end of book three and the start of this one. I won’t be going back and reading the fourth book, but I just wanted to put this here in case anyone was looking for my thoughts on the fourth book.

Title: The Bronze Key (Magisterium, 3)
Authors: Holly Black and Cassandra Clare
Genre: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Sword & Sorcery, Young Adult
Publisher: Corgi Books (1st September 2016)
Blurb:

MAGIC CAN SAVE YOU
MAGIC CAN KILL YOU

It should be a time of celebration. The Enemy of Death is dead; a severed head proof of his downfall – Callum, Tamara and Aaron, all students of the Magisterium, are heroes.

But when a fellow pupil is brutally murdered, Call’s worst fears are confirmed: there is a spy in his magical school.

No one is safe.

Now, using the powerful magic they’ve been taught, the trio must risk their lives to track down the killer. But magic is dangerous – in the wrong hands it could bring terrible destruction. And reveal the deadliest secret of all . . .

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3 stars)
Review:

THE BRONZE KEY is the third book in Holly Black and Cassandra Clare’s brilliant middle grade fantasy series Magisterium. This book continues the story of Callum Hunt – or Call to his friends – as he attends magic school. The Enemy of Death has been defeated, and Call is about to start his third year at the Magisterium. Call had a good summer with his father and best friend Aaron away from the world of magic; he hopes his third year will be less eventful than the previous two. Unfortunately that isn’t to be, as not long after his return a pupil is murdered.

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