thebwit's thoughts

So this is book number two in the series. There are two others that I know about, not sure if the author is writing this series as 4 books total or not.

But this book sets up the rest of the series. The story takes place about a year after the first book and has Kendra and Seth ending up at Fablehaven. Of course the world is going to come to an end unless they save the day. The basic idea is there is a powerful artifact hidden somewhere in Fablehaven, and they must retrieve it before the Society of the Evening Star does.

From the beginning of the of the book I knew there would be an "inside man" who would end up betraying Kendra and Seth. And I was right in my prediction. I was also right with another assumption I had about some of the characters so that made me happy as well.

But is this book as good as the first one? As a stand alone book I don't think it is. The first book was written to seem like the only book in the series. Yes there were clues that were left to be able to have more in the series, but it stood alone. Rise of the Evening Star does not have that luxury because at the end of the book there are still 4 other artifacts that need to be found.

So I like to liken this book to about book 3 of Harry Potter. Book 3 was really where the series felt like a series. The first two books in Harry Potter read like a series of books, but in the end they didn't divulge much in the way as future story lines.