Thomas Wildus and the Wizard of Sumeria Review

Hello Friends :)

I hope you're all having a great week so far, and I want to thank you all for joining me for another book review here on The Preppy Book Princess.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my review with you all of the first book in The Elandrian Chronicles, and today I'm excited to be back sharing with you all what I thought of the second book in the series.

Thomas Wildus and the Wizard of Sumeria by J.M. Bergen:

Source: Complimentary Copy Provided by Book Publicity Services

Publisher: Elandrian Press

Publication Date: May 20th, 2020

Genre: Middle Grade/Fantasy

Series: The Elandrian Chronicles

Synopsis:

A boy discovering his destiny. An ancient object of unspeakable power. An impenetrable web of deception.

It's been three months since Thomas and his friends faced off against the enigmatic Arius Strong in an epic fight for the future of humanity. They thought the battle was over. It was only just beginning.

Now, with a mysterious message from an unknown hacker, the action starts again. This time an ancient talisman with legendary powers is at stake, and Arius will stop at nothing to make it his own. Dark witches and wizards are rallying to his cause, and behind it all, a mysterious figure with inexplicable abilities. The forces of light are gathering as well, but the web of deception is thick. Will Thomas and his friends see through the lies in time to stop the forces of evil and prevent a catastrophe of historic proportions?

(synopsis from goodreads)

My Review:

Thomas Wildus and his friends are back in another action packed adventure to try and keep powerful objects from falling into the wrong hands. As much as I enjoyed the first book in the series, I honestly ended up enjoying this one even more and I think it's going to appeal to a wide variety of readers.

One of my favorite aspects of the first book was the friendship that exists between Thomas and his best friend Enrique. In Thomas Wildus and the Wizard of Sumeria, this strong friendship continues between the two, but their other best friend Akhil is also brought into the group. I enjoyed how once again, the two friends are more concerned with doing what they can to help with the mission, and never let their egos over what they can accomplish stand in the way. Each of the three friends brings something different to the table, and it's one of the many reasons this book stood out in a positive light to me.

There were a lot of ideas, characters and information introduced in the first book, and while the second takes time to build upon and expand on all these, it also introduces enough new plot points and characters to keep the story always seem new and exciting. Likewise, while the majority of the story is about Thomas and his circle of friends trying to stop a powerful dark magician from getting his hands on an object capable of unbelievable amounts of power, there's also more clues revealed about what happened to his father that kept me guessing around each and every turn.

J.M. Bergen has a talent for world building and developing magic systems, and I thought that both were every bit as good as they are in many beloved middle grade series like Percy Jackson. I always appreciate when an author can write a middle grade read in a way that makes it appeal to teen and adult writers as well, and that is definitely the case so far for me with the Thomas Wildus series.

Overall, this was a very worthy sequel and a new favorite middle grade fantasy read. My only complaint was that I thought one of the main plot points was a tad too obvious, and I'd actually figured it out less than a quarter of the way through the story. Other than that though, I really enjoyed this one, and I look forward to continuing on with the series when the third book releases next year.

Final Rating: 4/5.

Definitely go ahead and pick this series up if you're a fan of middle grade fantasy or adventure novels.

Thanks so much to Book Publicity Services for providing me with a copy of this to read and review!

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this novel from Book Publicity Services in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to give a positive review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.