The Alchemyst

The Alchemyst

Twin 15-year-old siblings Sophie and Josh Newman take summer jobs in San Francisco across the street from one another: she at a coffee shop, he at a bookstore owned by Nick and Perry Fleming. In the vey first chapter, armed goons garbed in black with “dead-looking skin and… marble eyes” (actually Golems) storm the bookshop, take Perry hostage and swipe a rare Book (but not before Josh snatches its two most important pages). The stolen volume is the Codex, an ancient text of magical wisdom. Nick Fleming is really Nicholas Flamel, the 14th-century alchemist who could turn base metal into gold, and make a potion that ensures immortality. Sophie and Josh learn that they are mentioned in the Codex’s prophecies: “The two that are one will come either to save or to destroy the world.” Mayhem ensues, as Irish author Scott draws on a wide knowledge of world mythology to stage a battle between the Dark Elders and their hired gun—Dr. John Dee—against the forces of good, led by Flamel and the twins (Sophie’s powers are “awakened” by the goddess Hekate, who’d been living in an elaborate treehouse north of San Francisco). Not only do they need the Codex back to stop Dee and company, but the immortality potion must be brewed afresh every month. Time is running out, literally, for the Flamels. Proceeding at a breakneck pace, and populated by the likes of werewolves and vampires, the novel ends on a precipice, presumably to be picked up in volume two. Ages 12-up. (May)
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User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars LOVE this series!
I am a Potter fan and was having geek withdrawals and needed a new adventure type series to get into and I found these on Amazon and I love them. All of the characters exist in real mythology so it’s fun to learn about them and study them separately. A great adventure, I have already pre-ordered the Sorceress.

5 Stars The Alchemyst: the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel
A fast paced exciting read for grades 5-8, it moves quickly and has lots of action. Characters are interesting and hold readers attention, but you are left hanging and can’t wait for the next book, The Magician, which is of equal quality. A student of faith might come away with some quesitons, just remember it is “ficiton”, but a great read.

5 Stars The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the BEST book you haven’t read!
Sophie Newman is at work when the world changes forever. Across the street from her, a sleek black car pulls up outside the book shop where her twin brother Josh is working over summer for Nick and Perry Fleming. Moments later the shop appears to explode, sending Sophie racing across the road to her brother and directly into the pages of history. For the owner of the shop isn’t Nick Fleming but Nicholas Flamel, better known as the Alchemyst, and the Codex he has been guarding for centuries has been stolen by Dr John Dee, former magician to Queen Elizabeth the First.

Except this is happening in modern day San Francisco and Sophie and Josh have never dealt with magic before.

The Alchemyst doesn’t stop, right from the very first pages the characters are given no opportunity to rest and neither is the reader. From meeting a 2000 year old Warrior Maiden who looks like a 17 year old girl to meeting the Goddess Hekate living inside the World Tree, the book keeps going and every page bring an ever increasing sense of danger and urgency to the storyline.

Characters from mythology and history are bought to life and fleshed out and set loose on the modern world, some hell bent on bringing about the destruction of humanity and some desperate to save it. Could Josh and Sophie be the twins of legend, the two that are one and the one that is all? Could these two teenaged humans have enough magical power within them to prevent Armageddon? Only time will tell, but the next instalments of this book will not come out soon enough.

It’s rare to find a book that sucks you in so completely, even stranger to find one that sends you racing into other books to find out everything you can about the people in it. Every single character in The Alchemyst is real, apart from the Twins. From millennia ago to the recent past, names you’ve heard, names you’ll know will leap out at you.

If you like mythology, history, danger, drama, death, sadness, love and above all, magic, you need this book in your life. Now.

4 Stars The Alchemyst
Anyone who enjoyed Harry Potter will enjoy the adventures of these teenagers. This is a good and easy read; I look forward to reading the next 2 books by this author.

5 Stars Mysterious and Magical
The Alchemyst is a wonderful start to what I am sure will be an absolutely amazing 6 book series in total. The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series has 2 books out so far and the third due out at the end of May 2009. This series contains magic, mythology, adventure and mysteries yet to be solved.

Twins Sophie and Josh, two ordinary teenagers in current times, find themselves in a world they thought they understood. They quickly learn that many mythological beings and people from history that are thought were long dead or never existed, are alive today with magical abilities. Guided by the 500 plus year old Nicholas Flamel, Sophie and Josh begin to learn that they are perhaps the twins prophesied about in an ancient book called the codex, which has been stolen from Flamel, by the devious Dr. John Dee. Flamel believes if he can awaken the twins magical powers and can get them trained in the elemental magics they may be able to find the codex and save the world from the dark elders.

I highly recommend this series to anyone, especially if you are looking to add a little magic and adventure into you life. The Alchemyst is a must read for all ages!

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