Magickeepers: The Pyramid of Souls Book

Review pertains to the uncorrected advanced copy in paperback. Much smaller than the first book this sophomore effort is more a novella than a full on book. I'm not complaining. I believe the novella is a very underrated word length, but I can't imagine that was what the publisher asked for. That said, on to the review...

Cousins Nick and Isabella are at it again, learning their craft as magickeepers while trying to prevent yet another crisis amongst the community. Damien, the family leader and head magician, refuses to listen to any logic save his own, which comes off a purposefully obtuse but drives the cousins into disobedience and gives the book its meat. Borrowing heavily from Russian folklore, interjected with actual historical characters, and replete with mini history lessons this book is educational but the quantity of such components minus any strong interconnecting narrative has a detrimental effect on pace, even in such an undersized volume (163 p). Top it off with an overabundance of magical system explaining, given that the system itself is unoriginal, and any long time reader of fantasy is left wondering what happened to the story.