Theophilus Grey and the Traitor’s Mask
Catherine Jinks
Theo has survived and thrived as a servant of the Crown of England. Yet all that responsibility for his crew and his other commitments are overcrowding his head. When he can’t think clearly, that’s when things begin to fall,well, not apart, but it all becomes messy.
As always, it can be dangerous reading a sequel of a novel you loved. This one lived up to expectations though, and had me hanging on the edge of my seat for almost as long as the first! I guiltily picked it up the moment it arrived at my doorstep…
I recognised some of the streets in this one – Drury Lane! From the nursery rhyme, not because of any knowledge of London geography. Despite not really knowing where each thing was, I managed to get an image of where Theo and his crew ran. That’s something that’s really important in this novel, and just in case you struggle there is a handy map inside the front cover.
Theo is quite confused for the majority of this novel, and the audience is a little bit too. But it’s on purpose! I can’t talk about the plot too much or I’ll give away the lovely twists. Some of Theo’s friends are sometimes just too bright for their own good!
I’m going to go so far as to give it 5 stars for the right audience. I think this on has re-readability to teenagers in order to pick up the plots and hints that you might have missed on the first round of reading. For me, it’s a 4 stars, couldn’t put it down and really enjoyed it. I am sad that it is only a duology.
The twist in this novel is that you don’t know there is a twist. I’m really not sure how long Will’s situation has been the way it is, but you get the snap-shot of when things are really changing. Will is very skittish, but cute all the same. Julian is not cute. He’s just annoying and pushy and a great friend.
Elspeth goes from a lonely loner to someone who dares to have friends. Funny how losing everything seems to do that to a person. She progresses rapidly from someone only concerned about saving herself to someone who can and will help others. It’s that transformation that brought me back to this novel over and over again.
So you’ve seen the movie six dozen times (or maybe seven dozen, if you’re my age and it played on the weekend TV every week). But the book is the best, and the two movies don’t do justice to Roald Dahl’s world. Something that this novel has over the films is that you get to see illustrations of the four other children after they have been returned to their approximate original selves.
I forget how much I like this novel every time I put it away on the shelf, and then when I pick it up I just can’t stop reading it. It’s fascinating to think that special extensions of senses are just evolution. Let me evolve that way! I wish I had abilities like this. But I wouldn’t want to be able to smell the rotting meat of infected people.
I remind astounded by the sheer number of convincing magic systems Sanderson can create. There are so many interesting novels about 
The characters really really get into their strides here. And well they should, as this novel neatly wraps up the first two. I don’t know how I felt about the ending. It was a little neat, but also open ended. I loved Adolin’s final gesture – finally! Get on it boy! Kal, hmm, don’t know what I think about you. Sometimes you are just so dumb, and sometimes you are brilliant.
This is a thriller, and it’s a bloody good one! I absolutely loved this book. 
This novel is told from a number of perspectives, and this usually urks me. I still felt irritated with this, because really, it could have been written mostly (particularly Shallan’s) in seperate parts. I didn’t have trouble keeping track of the story threads, but I did feel myself rushing through certain sections to get to the next mention of my favourite characters (mainly Kaladin).
For the first chapter of George you don’t actually know what’s happening in the story. George could be a girl or a boy’s name. Instinctively the problem is thatÂ