Leeds’ debut in the series was enjoyable, and fast paced but perhaps had too much world building and ideas, and new words packed in to totally get lost. The second in the series benefits from an established world and glossary and has more room to breathe. The writing is assured and the narrative is clear. A really enjoyable and confident bridge to a potentially explosive finale!

I know this series is aimed at children over two decades younger than me, but I don't care much. I thought the first book - Jayben and the Golden Torch - was so splendid and kept looking to see if there was any news on a sequel.

What I particularly like about this series so far is that the main character of Jayben has seizures, and you rarely see a main character with seizures unless it's in a story about illness and how that person is 'lesser' because of them. I developed seizures in 2022, and whilst they are different to Jayben's, and the books are not necessarily aimed at me, if I was having seizures as a young child, having a protagonist in a magical book have them too - it would have meant the world to me, and so I think it's vital what Thomas is doing with Jayben.

Thomas hasn't used the seizures as a gimmick. Jayben isn't the sickly kid who gets away with things because he's not well, and it's never seen as an "aw bless" tick boxing kind of thing. It's just very real and I think there needs to be more books, kids books especially, featuring children with disabilities because then they learn that it's okay if someone's a bit different. And I think adults so easily lose that, sadly.

He has really cleverly depicted what the seizures mean to the rest of your life. You can feel so left out, or you feel like a burden or you're causing the issues, you can't remember things, you can't always help people - he's shown that in an age appropriate and entertaining, but honest and serious way. A seizure is more than just the ten minute fit, for example.

Now, onto the rest of the book.

We have a map, people!

We've got the familiar faces we met in the first book, people like Jayben, Russog, Phee, Maybie, Peggro, Null, and others that I've probably forgotten to name, but he's also introduced some new ones. So we get what we came for, but he's expanded the world slightly. It means it's familiar but not identical. I must say, Ben's Aunt Samantha is a real nasty piece of work. She's very well written, and she does stray into the pantomime villain area sometimes but I think that works in this book, like, she's meant to be over the top, and it was good, even though she isn't.

I love Thomas' creation of the Elf world. He's depicted the magic and fantasy elements, but kept a bit of reality to make it recognisable and relatable, because we all want a little magic in our daily lives, child or adult.

Whilst this series is very obviously aimed at children, I think it's got so much for adults to appreciate too, which is why I'm enjoying it so much.

My only criticism as such as is there is a lot, to begin with anyway, of telling you everything that happened in the first one. Which is great if you're coming into this one without reading the first one, but a bit of a stumbling block for those who have already read it. Having said that, putting myself in a kids mindset, it might be good to refresh their memories as they might have read it a long time ago and forgotten what had happened. But on a personal note, I kind of just wanted it to get started straight away. But that's my only negative point I think, and that's more to do with my age and expectations more than anything.

Whereas the first book was more about the villain and the baddies and survival etc. This one, for my at least, was more about the fantasy lands, the creatures, and the characters, who they are, how they've developed, their friendships etc. I'm really hoping for a third installment, as this book definitely felt like it was building up to something spectacular.