Hopefully the increase in quality means that the books do get better as the series progresses. There was still an occasion or two where I felt the characters behaved slightly oddly, and seemed to be focusing on something small, when they could have dealt with the main antagonist fairly easily, but that does seem to be par for the course in this series, unfortunately. There weren't as many instances where the writing felt juvenile, which I did find with the first two major works. I suppose being only a very short story, there's less opportunity for plot holes to arise, but even focusing on the actual writing as opposed to the story, it still seemed a lot better to me. If this is correct, it would perhaps explain why this seemed to be written better, as the author would have a bit more experience. I realised when I finished Flyte that I had missed this, and so have read it slightly out of order, although from the fact it has excerpts from Fyre, I am assuming it was written after publication of the the 6th major work in the series. So this was a nice, quick and enjoyable read.Ī much more promising entry in the series than the first two books. But I find myself immensely enjoying the sort of humor used by this 's sort of sarcastic, but not viciously so, and not slapstick or over the top. I also wasn't completely clear on what the Darke Toad does and wonder whether it's important or not. We didn't get to see much of Septimus this time around - it was mostly focused on Simon and the Port Witches. It's interesting to see where Simon's loss of his expected apprenticeship has got him - as apprentice to a dead DomDaniel. I haven't read Flyte yet, so I'm not sure what this story was setting up or providing more detail on.

This was a cute and interesting little interlude. But Marcia Overstrand and Septimus Heap step in to save him. In their excitement about the prestige that will result, the witches decide to nab a young boy to be their slave. And we get to see the dynamics of the Port Witch Coven who is promised the Darke Toad as a reward for their help. Fortunately it's Halloween, so his movements go unremarked.

He manages to clothe his bones enough to get around, much to Simon's disgust, but they seek out help from the Port Witch Coven for a more permanent spell, so DomDaniel can complete his nefarious plans. Simon Heap is now following orders from DomDaniel who is in some pretty awful shape, but not about to let death stop him.

Angie sage septimus heap