Brian is a nervous kid from a conservative, religious household. I buy it.

 

Alex's recklessness has bitten Brian in the ass in the past a few times. His wariness was pretty understandable, given their past, and immediately proven justified.

 

Complex main character with well written flaws and strengths, creative worldbuilding and a plot that isn't a rehash of HP and it's well trodden path.

Highly recommended.

 

I think I'm going to wait a while before actually following this new book, the short chapter length of ch.2 kinda bothered me. I've never actually followed an Alexandra Quick book before it was finished so reading as it's updated would burn me out. I hope they eventually decide to bump it up to 3 days a week release but I can understand them drawing it out honestly.

 

Gotta love Alex's attitude. And her apologies.
--- Post automerged ---
Reread the book before this. Solidified my opinion on the series. Too quality stuff ..but the plot device of Alexandra's stubbornness, recklessness and (when it's convenient for plot) lack of foresight is annoying as hell.

She gets warned against doing A. She gets upset. She does A. She gets punished, gets warned not to do stuff again. She gets warned against doing B. She gets upset. She does B even THOUGH her internal dialogue notes this is dumb . Repeat.

Really obvious in the previous book. I hope this book doesn't rely on the same plot device.

 

I really liked this new chapter and how Alex didn't get her way, because even halfway through I was convinced

Spoiler

she was going to get back into charmbridge. So, I'm surprisingly satisfied she didn't. I feel like the next few books will be like book 7 of canon, even if she's going to a day school of some sort.

If this had been a book ago I do think she would've kept on trying instead of catching on that she was being set up. I quite liked the scene with Larry and Cleo as well.

 

Interesting conflict. Why doesn't Alex inquire as to moving to another country? Or publicizing the Elect/child stuff in another country's wizarding newspaper? Like the UK

 

Yeah if Alexandra went the way of Rahkesh Asmodaeus it'd be terrible. I still think she'll end up in apprenticeship or maybe one of the other big schools. I hope the Ozark arc is long though.

 

Just finished rereading books 1-4 and remembering how much I love this series. There really isn't anything else like Alexandra Quick in HP fanfiction - for world-building and character development and magical theory and action and humor and consistently good writing, in a story entirely made up of original characters.

The new chapters feel like a natural continuation of the series, after the seven year gap.

Spoiler

It seems like returning to Charmbridge would have been problematic anyway, even if she'd been allowed, because her father has been systematically destroying all the magical schools in the Confederation with connections to the Lands Below. I wonder if Charmbridge will be destroyed too now? And where her friends would go next...

I thought for a minute the mention of New Amsterdam (another territory) in the summary could mean she would go to school there, but that's one of the schools that was destroyed in book four.

 

Well this chapter has dealt with some of my worries;

Spoiler

Definitely not abroad; quite the opposite with opening a new school in Larkin Mills. Interested to see where this goes. There's obviously going to be big fallout from the Government, and I imagine that many of the students who come will be ah, different from the usual cohort at Charmbridge.

I also think Alexandra may well get a new wand that actually works for her in the Ozarks - a troublesome wand for Troublesome. I vaguely recall something about how the Ozarker's give out wands based on names (I hope I'm not making this up) and as there hasn't been a Troublesome in a long time they probably have one for her.