Middlegame (Alchemical Journeys, 1)

Changing to five stars on the reread - this story was meant to be reread, which makes perfect sense as Roger and Dodger had to do things so many times to get it right.


The first 35 pages, I was wondering if maybe this was not a book for me.

Fortunately, I was reading it with my friend who explained to me what I'd missed that made it make sense. As soon as I was introduced to the two main characters, I was sold and completely immersed in this story. I have always been fascinated with the relationship/bond between twins and this book really played into that in the best kind of ways.

Throughout the book, there were excerpts from another book by the author's pen name and by the end of the book, I was dying to read it too - so I preordered it - luckily it comes out in a couple weeks!

Towards the end, it did get a bit heavy on the info dumping, but it was short lived and ended in a way that left it open for a sequel, which made me VERY happy.

I mean… this is certainly a unique story but it felt too long for my taste and it wasn’t entirely satisfying when I was done reading it.

I love reading about alchemy, the alchemists were very creative and the story was super fun to read. I’d recommend it to people that enjoy magic and mystery.

Yup, it's official: Seanan McGuire is one of my favorite writers. I took my time to savor this book and can't wait for the next installment.