Hi everyone! Welcome to my stop on the Dream Magic blog tour. Dream Magic is the sequel to Joshua Khan's middle grade fantasy, Shadow Magic, and contains zombies, ghosts, a gigantic flying bat and lots of magic. If that doesn't appeal to you, I don't know what will! Please see my review of Dream Magic below.
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Publisher: Scholastic
Released: 6th April 2017
My Rating: 3.75 stars out of 5
Find it on Goodreads
In a world ruled by six ancient Houses of Magic, a girl and a boy begin an epic and dangerous journey of discovery...
Lilith Shadow, princess of darkness, is struggling with her growing powers. Castle Gloom is filling with ghosts, zombies roam the country and people throughout Gehenna are disappearing. Then Lily is attacked in her own castle by a mysterious sorcerer known as Dreamweaver and his army of jewel-spiders whose bites send victims to sleep. Thorn, and his giant bat Hades, must save Lily from the realm of sleep and help her overcome the evil Dreamweaver in order for her to reclaim her kingdom. (from Goodreads)
After enjoying Shadow Magic, I was excited to start reading Dream Magic, and wasn’t disappointed! It was a fun and action-packed read that will appeal to fantasy fans of all ages.
In Dream Magic, the dead just weren’t staying dead, and Gehenna was overrun by zombies and ghosts and vampires while living people were disappering. Necromancy was the magic of the Shadows – but as Lily was a girl, she wasn’t supposed to have magic. The fact that she did – and that she was a powerful witch at that – initially terrified people, and Lily didn’t really know what to do. She didn’t enjoy ruling, it wasn’t supposed to be her job, but after the death of her parents and her brother, she was the only Shadow left. She had enough problems without some strange dream magic infecting her people; she was only thirteen and she was dealing with so much! All while keeping her great sense of humour too. I liked Lily because she wasn’t your typical ruler – she was nothing like Gabriel (who returned in this book – with no improvement to his personality) and was more concerned with doing what she thought was right than keeping up her appearances. She was also a strong witch and quite clever, and while she might not have liked ruling, I think she was actually well-suited to it.
Thorn was continuing his work as a squire, though he wasn’t seeing much of Tyburn or Lily these days. His only constant companion was his pet bat Hades (whom I adored). Of course, things never stayed calm in Gehenna, and Thorn managed to get involved in trying to solve the dream magic mystery with Lily. Lily and Thorn got closer in this book, which was nice to see, and I liked that Thorn was becoming more confident in himself within Gehenna. It wasn’t a place he was used to, and he knew that as a squire, no matter how many heroic deeds he did, he’d never truly be recognised for them. But even so, he didn’t care, and continued to do what he could to help people. He was also a lot cleverer than people thought, and I liked that he was always proving those who underestimated him wrong. I did miss Tyburn in this book, and would have liked to have seen his relationship with Thorn develop a bit more, but I’m sure that will be explored more in book three.
Plot-wise, there were a lot of twists and turns in this book and I really enjoyed reading about dream magic and the Dreamweaver. The illustrations were a nice touch and I felt they really added to the story. The jewel spiders made me shudder – I hate spiders of all kinds, jewelled or not – and was creeped out every time they popped up! I also liked how the book touched on morality, and whether something bad can be justified if it’s for the good of everyone else. Things weren’t always clear-cut, and while this book didn’t go into detail on the topic, it was interesting to see it discussed. I’m really intrigued by how Lily’s relationship with her father’s ghost will change after the revelations of this book, and look forward to book three!
Overall, Dream Magic was a really enjoyable sequel to Shadow Magic, and I’ll be continuing this series to find out what happens next.
In Dream Magic, the dead just weren’t staying dead, and Gehenna was overrun by zombies and ghosts and vampires while living people were disappering. Necromancy was the magic of the Shadows – but as Lily was a girl, she wasn’t supposed to have magic. The fact that she did – and that she was a powerful witch at that – initially terrified people, and Lily didn’t really know what to do. She didn’t enjoy ruling, it wasn’t supposed to be her job, but after the death of her parents and her brother, she was the only Shadow left. She had enough problems without some strange dream magic infecting her people; she was only thirteen and she was dealing with so much! All while keeping her great sense of humour too. I liked Lily because she wasn’t your typical ruler – she was nothing like Gabriel (who returned in this book – with no improvement to his personality) and was more concerned with doing what she thought was right than keeping up her appearances. She was also a strong witch and quite clever, and while she might not have liked ruling, I think she was actually well-suited to it.
Thorn was continuing his work as a squire, though he wasn’t seeing much of Tyburn or Lily these days. His only constant companion was his pet bat Hades (whom I adored). Of course, things never stayed calm in Gehenna, and Thorn managed to get involved in trying to solve the dream magic mystery with Lily. Lily and Thorn got closer in this book, which was nice to see, and I liked that Thorn was becoming more confident in himself within Gehenna. It wasn’t a place he was used to, and he knew that as a squire, no matter how many heroic deeds he did, he’d never truly be recognised for them. But even so, he didn’t care, and continued to do what he could to help people. He was also a lot cleverer than people thought, and I liked that he was always proving those who underestimated him wrong. I did miss Tyburn in this book, and would have liked to have seen his relationship with Thorn develop a bit more, but I’m sure that will be explored more in book three.
Plot-wise, there were a lot of twists and turns in this book and I really enjoyed reading about dream magic and the Dreamweaver. The illustrations were a nice touch and I felt they really added to the story. The jewel spiders made me shudder – I hate spiders of all kinds, jewelled or not – and was creeped out every time they popped up! I also liked how the book touched on morality, and whether something bad can be justified if it’s for the good of everyone else. Things weren’t always clear-cut, and while this book didn’t go into detail on the topic, it was interesting to see it discussed. I’m really intrigued by how Lily’s relationship with her father’s ghost will change after the revelations of this book, and look forward to book three!
Overall, Dream Magic was a really enjoyable sequel to Shadow Magic, and I’ll be continuing this series to find out what happens next.
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*Tintagel, in case you were wondering. (from Scholastic)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/writerjoshkhan
Many thanks to Faye and Scholastic for letting me take part in this blog tour! Don't forget to visit the next stop tomorrow at Bart's Bookshelf.
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