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By Michael Scott [LibraryThing – Goodreads]

Nicholas Flamel and his wife Perenelle have lived nearly seven hundred years, thanks to Nicholas’s possession of the Codex, a book full of magical secrets like the elixir of life, the spell to turn base metals to gold…and the key to bringing back the old gods and destroying the human race. When Nicholas is attacked by his almost-as-ancient enemy, Dr. John Dee, and the book and Perenelle are both taken, Nicholas knows he doesn’t have long before the human race is wiped out by Dee’s masters, the Dark Elders. All Nicholas has on his side are Josh and Sophie, ordinary 15-year-old twins who didn’t mean to get mixed up in all this. But Nicholas suspects they may be the twins prophesied in the Codex, who may save the world…or destroy it.

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By Carolyn Q. Ebbitt [LibraryThing - Goodreads]

Amelia, princess of Gossling, is nothing like her three older sisters. While they are all beautiful, graceful, clever, and talented, she is awkward, stubborn, and a terrible student. But when the king and queen fall victim of a plague and the girls’ cruel uncle, Count Raven, attempts to seize power, Amelia is the only princess to escape the clutches of his magic. Now she must free her sisters from Count Raven’s spell and rally the people of Gossling to fight back before it’s too late.

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Book Four

Starting time: 5:30
Ending time: 8:36

Title: Lust
Author: Robin Wasserman
Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 229

Summary: Let’s see if I got this: Adam and Beth are the golden couple; mean girl Harper wants Adam; rich new girl Kaia also wants Adam, sleezy Kane wants Beth; Harper’s BFF Miranda wants Kane. And there’s a “don’t stand so close to me” teacher. People scheme.

Thoughts: This isn’t the sort of book I usually pick up, but I like the author. But I think I’ll stick with Wasserman’s sf from her on out. The only mildly tolerable character in the novel was Beth, everyone else? Bleh. This is decidedly not my genre, so I think I’ll skip the other six books in the series.

One cupcake.

By G. P. Taylor [Librarything - Amazon]

Blind 12-year-old Tersias can see the future, thanks to the possession of the demonic Wretchkin, making him a useful tool for the various powers in London, particularly the potentially regicidal Lord Malpas and the cult leader/religious charlatan Solomon. Along with a young thief named Jonas Ketch and the bumbling street magician Magnus Malachi, Malpas and Solomon fight for the possession of Tersias, the beautiful Tara, a very deadly knife, and a box that just may be a portal to another world.

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