[amazon-product alink="0000FF" bordercolor="000000" height="240"]1606410423[/amazon-product]With this review, I have officially read all four of the Fablehaven books currently available. Now I must wait for Book 5, and wait I shall. I’m optimistically hoping that the final book in the series will be worth the wait.

Like the previous three volumes, I found this latest installment of the Fablehaven series to be a fun read. While Brandon Mull takes his time setting the stage, the first half of the book is certainly not boring. While Kendra’s family believes her dead, she is in fact kidnapped by agents of the Society of the Evening Star, which creates all sorts of complications. However, the real story revolves around the continued search for the yet-undiscovered artifacts in an effort to keep them out of the Society’s hands. Once they have all been collected, the Society plans to use them to release the demon’s from their prison, thus loosing these horrible creatures into the world.

Kendra scours Patton’s Journal of Secrets, looking for clues as to the location of the hidden artifacts. Eventually it is discovered that the Knights of the Dawn must brave a dragon sanctuary called Wyrmroost to find the next artifact. Wyrmroost is a certain deathtrap for our adventurers, leaving them wondering if they will actually succeed – or even survive – in their mission. I hesitate to say more lest I spoil the story for you. The little twists and turns in the plot are what makes it fun to read.

I do not read many young adult (YA) books for a couple of reasons. Generally, I find YA books too simplistic for my tastes, way too short and too predictable. True, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary is admittedly not an adult book and I don’t believe it was ever intended to be written for an adult audience, but I found it entertaining enough to keep me interested. Particularly in the last half of the book. Once the stage was set, Mull successfully wound his way through to the end, planting a few surprises here and there to keep the reader going. And I believe the book was the longest of the four volumes, with the hardback weighing in with 527 pages. Lest that scare young readers off, however, the book seemed to have fewer words per page than some of the adult doorstop books I have read and seemed to move pretty quickly.

In terms of recommendations, I found it interesting that Christopher Paolini, author of Eragon, said the book “kept me turning the pages until 4:40 in the morning…deep, intriguing, magical…one of the most enjoyable fantasies I’ve read.”

According to Amazon, the recommended age is 9–12 years and I agree that is likely a good fit in most cases, unless the child tends to shy away from too much suspense, action and monsters.

For more information on Fablehaven 4: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, click here. The author’s website is http://www.brandonmull.com

Happy reading!

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