After the breakneck pacing maintained throughout The Battlemage, The Outcast feels as though it bumbles along a little bit. That’s not a bad thing, but I did find my attention drifting a little bit at points because I just didn’t connect with Arcturus’s story as well as I did with Fletcher’s.

This might be because I had already read Origins – a free eBook which was offered on Amazon prior to the publication of The Novice – and loved it, not realising that The Outcast is an extended version of Origins (the short story is the first third of the novel, so I ended up skipping the first 100 or so pages and just diving in where Origins finishes).

The Outcast tells the story of Arcturus, the first common Summoner who attends Vocans Academy. His story is quite similar to that of Fletcher’s so there are bits and pieces that feel quite repetitive, but I thought getting to know the nobles who also attended Vocans during Arcturus’s time there was invaluable. A lot of these nobles become relevant to Fletcher’s story, so getting to see their teenage years made it much easier to understand their motivations.

I couldn’t think of anything that would have overtly spoilt any of the reveals or twists in the main trilogy, but there are some things which would have made it a bit easier to see some of the reveals coming so I can understand why Taran Matharu recommends reading this one last. Personally, I’d recommend reading it first to see if you’re interested in the Summoner series, and if you are try and wait a few months before you pick up the main trilogy so that you can hopefully still experience the surprises as though you were reading them in the recommended order!

I’m not sure whether I would have been as interested it reading The Novice without reading Origins first, because I thought it was such a brilliant introduction to the world. It gave us a glimpse into Vocans and the way that the Summoner universe worked without giving too much away, and it made it far too tempting not to read the rest of the series.

Although I did get a bit restless at points, I still enjoyed The Outcast enough to give it four stars, and I loved the excuse to revisit the world of the Summoner so soon after finishing the trilogy.

Another phenomenal book by Taran Matharu. I credit this author with getting half the (pre)teen boys in our area into reading!

Loved the summoner series and the prequel was just as great. I was instantly hooked and found the story really engaging. Loved that it had some of the characters from the summoner series in it but during their adolescent years, I didn’t want the book to end.

Thanks to Netgalley and Hachette Children’s Group for giving me this book to review.

The Outcast is an enjoyable prequel which is fast paced and a good addition to the Summoner series. However, there was no real jeopardy, even in tense situations, and it is annoying that practically all the adults from the main series featured in this book.

I like Arcturus as he is streetwise but also kind and courageous. I loved the growing friendship between Arcturus and Sacha, as they were very protective and caring of each other.

I enjoyed this book and being back the world of the Summoner. I would recommend The Outcast to fans of the main books in the series.

Between the Bookends: 8 Books We Read in June 2018Edit Entry
Posted on July 1, 2018 by Sophie Brown • 0 Comments
Reading Time: 9 minutes
Between the Bookends, Image: Sophie Brown
Between the Bookends, Image: Sophie Brown
In this month’s Between the Bookends, K, Lisa, Nivi, and Sophie share some of their summer reading. From time travel to wizards in disguise, Leonardo da Vinci to the US President, and from fantasy New Orleans to 1930s England, there’s a real mixed bag here. We hope you’ll find something to enjoy now summer vacation is upon us.

The Belles, Image: Disney-Hyperion
The Belles, Image: Disney-Hyperion
The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
If you read this book as an adult, you absolutely must remember that the target audience for this novel is young adult. The Belles is a story about a set of girls in a fictitious and fantasized New Orleans who have the ability to physically manipulate bodies into different, more fashionable shapes.

The book is getting praised up and down—deservedly—for its representation of queer girls and a variety of skin tones; it also badly misses the mark with a couple of sharply transphobic comments. Everyone basically wants the same—slim—body type. There’s some conversation about bringing “curvy” figures back into fashion, but the idea of “fat” being desirable is absolutely nonexistent. This book also contains a sexual assault which initially appears to be dealt with properly, but there is a serious betrayal of that handling at the end of the book which bothered K greatly.

The pacing felt strange because K didn’t realize until the cliffhanger ending that The Belles is the beginning of a series. Knowing that in the beginning might have positively affected her appreciation of the story.

K will recommend The Belles to people who she knows like YA, but this isn’t a book where she’s going to run around shoving it into the hands of everyone she knows.

The House With A Clock In Its Wall, Image: Puffin Books
The House With A Clock In Its Wall, Image: Puffin Books
The House With a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs
When Lisa was a young girl, she remembers curling up in the fall weather and reading The House With a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs. This month, she and her youngest daughter found it in a used bookstore and read it together.

Set in the fictional Michigan town of New Zebedee in the late 1940s, the book follows the adventures of the recently orphaned Lewis, who comes to live with his eccentric uncle Jonathan in a strange and wonderful house at 100 High Street. As much as Lewis enjoys his stay with his uncle and their friendly yet fierce neighbor Mrs. Zimmermann, he learns this house has a dark secret and an even darker past.

For parents looking for a page-turning summer read for their kids age 8 or older, Lisa recommends this book for all those who love magical escapes. It is also a fun trip back in time for adults looking for an easy afternoon reading break that will only take a couple of sittings. The book features illustrations by Edward Gorey, which are a perfect fit for the story.

Long before Harry Potter was a household name, Bellairs was sharing tales of the wizard and witches living in seemingly domestic normalcy, but with strange and fascinating talents. The book is hard to find in retail bookstores right now, but with a movie version coming out this fall, Lisa predicts new printings will soon be popping up very soon.

Oil and Marble, Image: Arcade Publishing
Oil and Marble, Image: Arcade Publishing
Oil and Marble by Stephanie Storey
Did you know Michelangelo finished David and Leonardo da Vinci completed the Mona Lisa in Florence, Italy in 1503? Two beloved masterpieces, created at the same time in the same place. That fact alone fascinated Nivi. Oil and Marble by Stephanie Storey delves into the lives of these two artists, who couldn’t have led more different lives. Da Vinci was fifty years old, renowned, and well-off, while Michelangelo’s family derided him for not getting a real job.

The book is well-written and compelling, making Nivi feel like she was stepping into 16th century Florence. What a trip. So good, in fact, that she had a book hangover that lasted for days.

The only negative (and this is totally not a real complaint) was that she spent the majority of the book trying to remember the name of the fourth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (because they really were a little after her time).

Downtimers, Image: Scarsmoor Publishing
Downtimers, Image: Scarsmoor Publishing
Downtimers by P.J. Hammond
Sophie was excited to read Downtimers by P.J. Hammond because the author is the creator of one of her all-time favorite TV shows—Sapphire and Steel—and so she hoped she would love this new book too.

Downtimers is set in Gate Town, a run-down English community where several people have recently arrived from the future and a special police unit has been assigned to track them down and detain them at a secure facility. Detective Inspectors Bonner and Pierce are the officers in charge of investigating the downtimers situation, supervised by their gin-guzzling boss Mrs O’Day and colleague Allie, while the downtimers themselves are a mixed bag of people.

Sadly, Downtimers simply fails to get off the ground. The reasons why the downtimers had come back and who was selected to travel—points central to the plot—seemed entirely arbitrary, and the method of travel didn’t make much sense. And speaking of time travel, it appeared that most of the male characters were stuck in the 1970s. While it was great to have a strong female police officer character, it was less so to have her introduced by a man wondering, “what it would be like to have those fine big thighs wrapped around his neck.” Despite his dated attitude, Sophie did find herself liking the character of DI Bonner and found him the most interesting of the bunch, although the other characters were so flat that doesn’t end up being much of an accolade.

Downtimers ended up being a depressingly run-of-the-mill novel that read like something by a new writer just starting his career, rather than one by someone with decades of writing experience. The story felt unfinished, there were several unnecessary sexually violent scenes that felt entirely out of place, and the ending just kind of happened. Sophie recommends you go watch Sapphire and Steel if you want a great P.J. Hammond time travel story, rather than reading this.

After The Party, Image: Penguin Books
After The Party, Image: Penguin Books
After the Party by Cressida Connolly
Sophie also picked up After the Party by Cressida Connolly. From the description and cover, she was expecting a Gatsby-esque novel with an Agatha Christie murder influence. What she read was something very different indeed.

Narrated by Phyllis from the 1970s, After the Party is set in the privileged social circles of southern England in 1938 when the threat of another global war was looming. Phyllis has just moved back to England and soon finds herself becoming increasingly involved in a new political movement. The movement is anti-war and believes that Britain should not get involved with European politics. Right from the beginning, the warning signs are there with anti-Semitism and xenophobic attitudes barely hidden behind the fun and games of the group’s summer camp. Soon it is revealed that Phyllis is involved with the British Union of Fascists and, as the war takes hold, she finds herself suffering consequences for her membership.

Sadly, the characters in After the Party were all rather flat. Despite her involvement, Phyllis barely shares any opinions about the BUF or fascism itself and comes across as more selfish than anything. The death she blames herself for in the blurb is such a non-event that Sophie spent the rest of the book waiting for something more shocking to occur.

Sophie found After the Party an interesting and illuminating book. It taught her a lot about a period of British history she knew little about, and educated her on some events she was never taught at school. It also raised many questions, such as whether imprisoning BUF members without trial was the right course of action to ensure the nation’s safety, and whether countries should embrace isolationism to help their own citizens. These are questions which are still relevant today thanks to Brexit and some recent immigration policies and After the Party casts a new light on them.

The Outcast, Image: Hodder Children's Books
The Outcast, Image: Hodder Children’s Books
The Outcast by Taran Matharu
Earlier this year, Sophie finally got around to reading the Summoner Trilogy by Taran Matharu and greatly enjoyed the, “Lord of the Rings crossed with Pokemon” (to quote a very simplistic description) stories. The Outcast is a prequel to this trilogy and focuses on Arcturus, a character who provided mentorship to the main character in the Summoner books.

Arcturus is an orphaned stable boy who, in the course of trying to escape his miserable life of poverty, accidentally summons a demon. As the nobility of Hominum are the only ones supposedly able to summon demons, the ruling classes quickly move to hide this from the masses who are dangerously close to rebellion.

Arcturus is taken to Vocans Academy where he is taught about summoning, spellcraft, and demonology alongside the children of the nobility. Inevitably, his presence as a commoner at the Academy are questioned by the teachers and noble’s children, and he must prove himself against the open enmity he faces.

As the reasons for Arcturus’s abilities and his parentage become clear, and tensions and hostility between the nobility and commoners escalates, he finds himself in the middle of a political conflict which sends him on a mission and adventure deep within Orc territory, and the lines between allies and enemies blur.

For fans of the Summoner series, there is much to enjoy with little deviation in the established narrative style. There is plenty of action and adventure plus historical events mentioned in the trilogy fleshed out. The Outcast is also a gateway for newcomers too, essentially providing a snapshot of the history of human politics, conflicts, and relations with dwarves, elves, and orcs, the summoning of demons, and the bonds created. If you like The Outcast then you’ll enjoy the Summoner trilogy.

Highlights

Sacha

Poor against rich

Outsider becomes insider

Magic school

Overall

I loved this book, the magic system, the characters, the world and obviously Sacha (she’s soo cute!).

Not having read the original trilogy, I had never been in this world before nor meet the characters. However, the book really is an independent story. I’m probably going to figure out exactly what things means, who people are and how much bigger this world is when I read the other books, but so far I didn’t feel I needed them to be able to read this one.

I did not see the twist at the end coming. Took me by surprise, but I’m glad it happened as it would have almost been too easy if not.

Story

The story takes place in the Summoner universe, but this book is the prequel to the first book in the series. As mentioned I have not read the original trilogy, but I thought I would read this to see if it could actually be a prequel and therefore would not be linked to the original trilogy as much. And yes it’s independent. It stands its own ground. It builds its own world. Creates its own evils. I made a good choice 😁 (I think)

The book starts off with Arcturus trying to steal a noble’s horse but instead summons a demon. Ops 🤭 He gets sent straight to Vocan School of Summoners where he finds himself unwanted. The school is filled with nobles who have the birthright to be pricks sorry, to be there. And this was really well done. There were almost two types of nobles; the kind and humble type, and the “being an asshole is my birthright” type. The humble type welcomes Acruturus to their ranks but at the same time are ignorant about his life as a poor. They don’t take the time to understand him or care too much to get to know him and who he is when it comes to his poor side. They are very friendly and inclusive, and that’s good, but there is one scene when someone can’t find his room because it’s not with the others without making too much effort asking around. For the record, Arcturus room is in the far tower, far away from the others. The lack of effort just sends a message that they don’t invest time to get to know him but accepts that he is there and doesn’t mind that he is different. I felt this was important and true in our world about anything and everything, and it’s very well done in this book, quite subtle. The ignorance from the nobles adds a boundary between Arcturus as a commoner and his friends who are nobles. While the pricks are just making his life difficult and dangerous.

World building

Even though this book is number four in the series, but a prequel, it did its own world building. For me, it was the perfect amount of world, not too big, not too small, and not based in one location.

The world starts off small with Arcturus being a stable boy and badly treated. Then a whole new side of this world is introduced as Sacha is summoned and he gets sent to this badass school for summoners aka noble firstborn. The change is sudden and abrupt but there is still more to it. The school slowly builds on the divide between the commoners and the nobles, and other creatures.

It’s the travelling part in the second half of this book which really puffs up the world and makes it denser and more colourful.

I really liked the add on of the soldiers and Rotter. It added another middle layer to the flavour of the world.

I wouldn’t call this world epic, not yet.

Magic System

I loved the idea of summoning demons which were actually mythical-type creatures from a void-type world inbetween worlds, if that even makes sense. It reminded me of catching pokemon (in the old days before Pokemon GO) 😂 Like you have to weaken it before you could catch it.

I also liked the mana source and limitations though I’m not 100% sure how it works or where the mana comes from, maybe I shouldn’t know. I also really liked the rune-type marks for spells and how well it blended with the demons without being the same. I’m looking forward to getting a better understanding of it in the next books.

Characters

There are three characters that really stuck with me reading this book:

Arcturus is a character is really liked. The entire book is from his perspective. You don’t get a complete understanding of him but you get all his views and feelings. I enjoyed reading about his worries without expressing them to others (just me 🤗).

Sacha the Canid. A puppy demon that looks like a black wolf-type creature with super soft fur you just want to cuddle. She is protective and amazingly badass female in this book. I would go as far as saying she is the most badass female character in the entire book. She doesn’t speak but at the same time, she has character and a personality. The canid character was very well written and I believed her to be the most loyal creature in existence.

taurus_0

Elain annoyed me so much! But at the same time, the writing made me kind of like her, though she is still very annoying. She is the youngest and tries too hard to fit in and be just as brave as the older kids at school. In my head, a 13-year-old is not a child, though Elain, being a noble and third born, do behave like it. This is so annoying. Just do as you’re told, child! Grr 😡

Romance

There is hardly any romance in this book which is really nice. This book doesn’t need romance, it has everything else.

The existing romance is in the background between two side characters which I can see could develop deeper in the other books (or even into a different direction, I’m looking at you Harold, eyeing someone else…🧐)

Writing

The writing was immersive and flowed through the story. There were no quirks which I often tend to notice as hiccups in the text and it stops my reading flow. This book had none and it was lovely to read.

This has been a very fun series so far and this prequel is a nice addition to the world. It tells the story of Arcturus as he finds himself with the ability to summon and is thrust into the world of the nobles. The plot hits a lot of the same beats as The Novice in the first half, which means that people new to the series can read this one first without being lost. Similarly, Matharu introduces plenty of new material in the second half, which satisfies those of us who are already familiar with the world. The narrative moves along at a good pace and includes plenty of action. There are some areas that really flesh out the world and we see events happening here that will bear great weight in the original trilogy. Again, as in previous instalments, some of the characters are a bit one-dimensional and have questionable motivations, but all in all, I think this is a great addition to the series.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Half the fun of a prequel is seeing the events which affected the main series, and The Outcast more than delivers on that front. One particular character appearance was particularly shocking, not how I expected to see the big bad from the main Summoner books, but there were plenty other fun cameos. I especially loved getting to see more of Fletcher's parents and noticing aspects he has in common with them, not to mention how it makes their ultimate fate feel all the more tragic. Arcturus is a brilliant hero and although we already know how the rebellion will go down, I was at the edge of my seat desperate to know more as plenty of twists and turns in the plot took me by surprise.

You know those days where you’ve finally had enough of your job and so you steal a horse, go on the run and – whoops – accidentally summon a demon? We’ve all been there… Arcturus handles it all pretty well, naming his new friend and then discovering he is a summoner, when it was thought that all the summoners had died out. This is a great YA action adventure story with twists, turns, danger and an exciting pace. I think this is my favourite of the series so far.