3/5 stars

The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, #6) by Michael Scott

A review of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel books 1-6

Oh the frustration! What do I do now? I loved the series! Through 5 and ¾ books I was thrilled. Everything was pointing to a new addition to my “best ever” shelf. My kids and my friends were going to love The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel! What a discovery to share!

Then I got to the end. . . .

And it sucked.

It’s hard to get too down because leading up to the ending was so great. Here’s why:

Reading these books is like getting a really fun history lesson! Josh and Sophie Newman are the only fictional characters author Michael Scott invented for the series. Every other character or monster is either a real figure in world history or is mythological. In this story, real people like Nicholas Flamel, John Dee, Niccolò Machiavelli, Joan of Arc, William Shakespeare, Billy the Kid, Virginia Dare, and mythological figures like Hekate, Bastet, Scathach, Prometheus, Mars Ultor, and Palamedes become moral action heroes. Their personalities and motives in the narrative are directly related to who they were in history. The result is a whole lot of super fun and often thoughtful dialogue.

The characters were great! I loved the unique personalities of each player. William Shakespeare and Billy the Kid were hilarious! John Dee was a jerk! Everyone had their moments, and the characters I cared about the most all got to have their hero moments.

The action was non-stop! We’re talking sweaty palms, heart racing, edge-of-your-seat action! Nearly every chapter ended in a shocking cliff hanger, and I was so pleased once again that I waited to begin the series until after all the books had been published.

Really, ready this series was so unexpectedly great I was ready to sing its praises to everyone I know–until I came to the ending. No spoilers, but dang it! I’ve never felt so let down by a book before!

Essentially, the big twist at the end of the book invalidated everything that had happened leading up to the big finale. Every battle, every sacrifice, every heart breaking decision that I’d felt so much energy for turned out to be insignificant. Nothing mattered. The fun was pointless. And to make it all worse, the key players either died pointless deaths or they lived but didn’t get resolutions! After 5 and ¾ books full of awesomeness, in the end all we get is a few paragraphs of an epilogue that doesn’t come close to satisfying my need for closure. How can the author find this a satisfying way to close the pages on the characters he’s created? I just don’t get it.

So I ask again, what do I do now? Can I recommend these books to my friends? Yes, I suppose. I did have fun reading them. They are clean . . . no bad language and no violence (although there is lots of fighting). I would say they are appropriate for 14 and up—not because of questionable content, but because the plot line is quite complex and there are so many characters (with weird names!) I fear anyone younger would not be able to follow the story and get bored. They made me laugh out loud many times and smile many others. I cared a lot about the characters—which I supposed is why the ending bothered me so much. I do recommend The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, but only with this warning: be prepared to feel let down in the end.