Gain The Missing Alchemist (The Young Alchemist, #1) Penned By Caldric Blackwell Softcover

is an enthralling tale about a young orphan boy, Craig Pike, who is claimed by an Alchemist to become his student.
Right from the getgo the story is fast moving, adventurous and fun to read as Craig must go about finding his kidnapped Alchemist, Cornelius! Along the way fighting off all sorts of magical beings, monsters and strange pathways he finds a friend, Audrey, who helps him accomplish his goal.
Every page and chapter held a new adventure and the ending was good I enjoyed how you could have finished the series here but, YOU DONT WANT TO!!! you want to know what happens next.
Well written, well plotted and more then fun to read! Look forward to Craig and Cornelius next adventure! What age was this book for it's repetitious which is good for younger readers but the chapters were overly long.
The story was simple but there was a lot of violence,
This should have been a fast easy read but I found it tedious, It was like reading a school assignment that word count was a requirement, Too much of the story seemed to be for the sole purpose of making the story longer, I kept thinking, "Why do I need to know this"
A lot in the story just doesn't make sense, Craig seems more of a wizard replace the wand with a staff instead of an alchemist, Audrey is a master archer/swordsman/bookie/eldercare nurse and she looks abouton the cover, They are never turned in the wrong

direction or can't find a lead By the time the great reveal came, I couldn't remember who the character was.

I now know why my son wasn't impressed, When Tia sent me the information on this blog tour, I quickly grabbed it up I enjoy children and middle school books, love fantasy, and I had already read a book by this author.
The cover caught my attention and the synopsis had me intrigued,

Unfortunately, once I got into the book, I was a little disappointed,

When I sit down to read these books, I try to put myself into the shoes of the reader, thinking about it as I would have felt at that age.
I have always been a big reader and spent a lot of my time when I was young getting lost in the pages of a good fantasy.
This had so much potential and could have really been a good book, but, . .

The story itself is interesting, in theory, but it is slow moving, and sometimes a little boring, The adventure just seems to ramble on and on, and in a lot of cases it was just TOO easy, The author spends a lot of time telling, and not much time showing, I know you hear that a lot, I want to feel like I am IN the story, joining these characters on their adventure, not like I am reading a story by someone who is watching them from afar, catching bits and pieces of their conversation.
The conversations between the characters does not always flow smoothly, rather feels forced and jarring,

The characters seem interesting at first, but once you start really looking at them as you go through the story, they leave you with a lot of questions:

Cornelius: You don't really learn much about him before he's whisked away by this unknown kidnapper.
You do know that he's a rather nice guy, especially after taking in Craig and some things that are hinted at from his past.


Craig: He really is loved by someone above, Everything happens so easily for him he just happens to meet people who can help him along his way, gets out of fights without being harmed or makes a new friend out of the situation i.
e. the people he meets when he first enters the forest, and the clues he finds are as obvious as those on Blues Clues.
For him being one of the main characters, I found him very uninteresting,

Audrey: She's really everything Craig isn't, She was fun, but most of the time she was just too far out there to be believable, And I agree with a review I read on Goodreads: Where did the swords come from!! And this is not the only question left unanswered.


Lily: I like Lily she's the horse, It's not exactly realistic to say that she swims like a barracuda yup, that happened, but allinall, she was my favorite character.


The villain: He laughs maniacally, That's really the only thing I remember about him, Maybe because I felt like he was doing it a lot, He reminded me of a villain from a cartoon, like Mojo Jojo on PowerPuff Girls,

And the one thing that I kept coming back to is, . . these people are not alchemists, Alchemist, when you look in a thesaurus, seems like a pretty word for wizard, sorcerer, magician, . . but if you don't look at it's definition, you miss out on the fact that it has to do with potions and concoctions, not plain old spells and staffs.
An alchemist is "a person who is versed in or practices alchemy," and alchemy is "any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance, of great value," think metals into gold, universal solvents into an elixir of life.
That's not what these guys are,

I think this book would be great for younger children, the ones that are just starting into chapter books even though the chapters are long.
. . as long as they are not big fans of adventure and fantasy, There are some good moments and I think, if the child is new to reading, this could encourage her/him to want to read more, and would be a great way to introduce them into the world of fantasy books.
But if you have already been indulging them with fantasy and adventure, you may want to steer clear of this one.


Note: I received a copy in exchange for an honest and unbiased review, Please remember that this review is my opinion based on my own personal impressions of the book,
This is the first book Ive read by this author, and it held my interest the whole book, The book takes the formula of two people in this case young kids on a rescue mission exploring unfamiliar regions and does a good job with it.
The alchemy was interesting, but not really central to the plot, Ill be reading the sequel when it comes out,
Oh, this book. It could have been so good, Instead its flat and a bit dull with more tell than show, and characters who are introduced with a full physical description that is never referred to again.
Our intrepid hero, Craig, is pretty dim, fairly useless in a fight, yet somehow manages to succeed wherever he goes, This would mostly be thanks to the Big Clues that seem to follow him around, ready to hit him on the head at the appropriately coincidental time.
He also has a habit of getting into fights from which he escapes either utterly unscathed or with a new friend.


Speaking of friends, we have Audrey the fiesty girl whos good in a fight, But Audrey, really, where did those swords come from! Shes already an incredible archer, but suddenly she has Legolasstyle twin swords too Dont even get me started on the fact that she can slaughter a colony of bats without ever running low on arrows.


Oh, theres also Lily the horse who can swim like a barracuda I kid you not, that is the actual line, when not head butting wolves or hauling her owner out of a river while neighing.
Clearly they have magical horses in this place, And is it just me or does the term alchemist conjure up visions of potions and, I dont know, chemical reactions The magic here is much more wizardstaffandspells.


Things also happened suddenly quite a lot, and theres a bad guy who laughs maniacally and does weird things with stone.


So, riddled with clichés, bad dialogue, flat action, too much tell and nowhere near enough showing, The best thing I can say about it is that its short,

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, This book with the plot it had, had a lot of potential, However, it fell short of my expectations, The best way I can describe this book is that author probably had something fantastic in his mind but only told about a fourth of what he had in mind.
Or in better words

gtsitelink com/i/gkzdc

Just replace the text with "My story in my head" and "How I tell the story".


The problem with this book was that it was too fastpaced I didn't know a thing existed as in, every action scene or any scene in general was described and moved on in a matter of a few paragraphs.
There was no opportunity to develop the characters as well and I really felt that Craig was big pushover, He's a sorcerer who should be able to protect himself but yet Audrey has to save him every time he's in trouble.


All of the characters besides Craig and Audrey were so cardboard, it's like why even bring them up, And as a final word, the book was incredibly predictable, So when these "surprises" came, I'm just like, I had that hunch two pages ago,

I'm giving it two purely for the fact that this book had the potential to be a great book, it was just lacking information.
I hear there is a sequel to this so hopefully it makes up for the information we as readers couldn't acquire in this first installment.
A good story with little embellishment, The Missing Alchemist is a book that has just about everything you expect from a fantasy novel, The is the orphaned hero, his pure mentor, the unexpected but skilled fighter which I was glad to see cast as a girl, as well as monsters and magic.
There was the dangerous, epic journey and the battles and risks taken because of the need to do the right thing regardless of the risks.
The story itself was very well told, and full of drama and magic, what left me a little disappointed was the characters, Audrey was the most complex character in the whole thing, with the most complete backstory, I would have like a bit more character development, and a wee bit more variety in the fights, Not every magical creature has to be evil and beaten down, I really enjoy when a solution is found by outsmarting or striking up a deal or friendship with an opponent on occasion rather than just using violence.
That being said, for a high adventure story this book still hits the mark, it just did not thrill me like it will those looking for an action driven tale.


The Missing Alchemist is a perfect choice for a middle grade reader that likes an action driven story, There is a dangerous journey, a variety of perils, and magic and/or danger around every corner, there is a strong and smart female character as well as a male protagonist, so just about all interested parties will have a character to connect to.
However, readers that need significant character development and a strong connection to the characters might be a little disappointed, .