The first in this series was good but this book is excellent and the action really ramps up in a well-thought-out military campaign

The Novice ends on a pretty dramatic cliffhanger, so it might surprise you to learn that The Inquisition is set one year after the events of the first book. Luckily we haven’t missed much with Fletcher, though, who has spent that year in jail after getting arrested at the end of book one.

The Inquisition is two stories in one. The first half, unsurprisingly, is the titular inquisition. Fletcher is on trial for the crime for which he was arrested, and – without giving any spoilers as to the outcome of the trial – he has to face an inquisition led by some familiar nobles who hate him very much.

The second half of the story shows Fletcher being sent into orc territory to attempt a rescue mission. Is this punishment for his crime? You’ll just have to read it to find out! But I will tell you it reunites him with a lot of the characters we meet in book one, and the dynamic between them is explosive.

As I mentioned previously, The Novice took us a little while to get through because the pacing is a lot slower – understandably, as it is setting up the entire Summoner universe – but the tension in the second half of The Inquisition made me desperate to read it in as few sittings as possible.

Although I also gave The Inquisition four stars, I believe it was probably closer to a 4.5. It still wasn’t my favourite book in the series (that’s The Battlemage!) but it’s far stronger than the first book. Whereas The Novice has a huge focus on Vocans and Fletcher’s first year learning the art of the Summoner, The Inquisition takes us further afield into the land of Hominum and completely absorbs you into the world and the lore Taran Matharu has crafted.

This book also ends on a huge cliffhanger, so I was grateful that I already had book three lined up and ready to go. This is a series which screams the words binge-read, and thankfully Matharu must have predicted that his novels would end up being read that way because the recaps are woven very subtly into the start of each installment. One of my biggest pet peeves is when you pick up the next book in a series and it clunkily regurgitates the events of the previous volume, so I’m glad that wasn’t an issue here.

Not only is there an extremely dramatic cliffhanger, but there is also one hell of a reveal. I was screeching from excitement because I did not see it coming at all. Another of Matharu’s skills is the art of crafty foreshadowing.

This writer shows a great deal of promise. Great reading for teens who have an interest in fantasy. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend this.

While I enjoyed this book, I don't think it was as good as the first in the series. I did really like seeing all the characters again and jumping back into the world, and it was great to learn more about the magic system, which is one of the main reasons these books are so appealing. At the same time, however I had a few issues. Mostly I was left a little confused at how some things occurred and I questioned the reason behind certain events [spoiler] I couldn’t get behind making Fletcher a noble, wasn’t the point that he didn’t have to be? To me, it kind of undermined the message of the last book, though that is of course just my opinion [end of spoiler]. I also wanted to spend more time at Vocans, but I could understand why this didn’t happen and there was a lot of other exciting stuff going on that made up for it. One thing I really would have liked to have seen was how Fletcher recovered; he spent a year locked up in a cell, isolated from the rest of the world, and yet he seemed to get over it pretty quickly. I wish we could have had more insight into his thoughts. I did like this book overall, though, the plot was interesting, and Fletcher was a compelling main character that you couldn’t help but root for. I will definitely be reading the next book, and look forward to finding out what will happen next!