I’ve got an ARC of this book, Lucky me!

Let me begin by saying I loved this one more than I loved the first book. While the first one was pretty serious, skipped the potty humour and was around the level of How to ride a dragon’s storm / How to break a dragon’s heart, this one cranked it up a notch to How to steal a dragon’s sword -levels. Including war, a kidnapping, characters going missing and a heartbreaking, sad, tragic, magic backstory told to the main characters, Termagant style.
The book includes a map and two named parts, just like the previous one. Plus, Xar and Wish have a little different outfit. The story starts in the middle of the action with Xar (who else) in big trouble.

Speaking of Xar, he was much less annoying. In the first book 50% of me liked him for being clever and the other 50% vehemently annoyed me, while here he is much nicer. And while the two heroes don’t always get along (I liked that a lot, they’re friends but are still on opposide sides and still curse eachother when mad and stuff like that doesn’t fade with one encounter) their friendship is really sweet.
Another thing I won’t spoil too much about is that Xar is suffering terribly for one of his mistakes in book 1 (although he manages to avoid very serious consequences, stuff gets dire at one point). And it doesn’t get resolved in the end, so further suffering will commence.
This is a Cressida Cowell book after all... I am kind of excited for that.

Wish is a sweet little cupcake who only wants the best but sadly no one ever listens to her. ( )

I have been borrowing most of the audiobooks I read from my local library. I read the first book last year in July. The books are so popular that I had to wait for a ... very ... long ... time to get my hands on book 2. It was worth the wait.

The adventure continues for our two heroes - Wish and Xar. The plot is fast-paced. There's no time to get bored, too much is happening. And the characters are intense, funny, different, and work so well together even if they do argue and screw things up for each other.

I enjoyed the pace and the humour. And, again, I especially enjoyed David Tennant's reading of the book. He truly brings the book alive.

Again, totally recommended. ( )

Twice magic indeed. These stories are divine. I loved listening to the audiobook, once again narrated by David Tennant. I highly recommend this series. Cannot wait for book 3. ( )

Super creative writing. I didn’t read the first book, but the storyline made sense without knowing any previous knowledge of what happened in the first book. ( )

Picking up more or less where the last book ended, warrior Wish and wizard Xar must once again escape their parents (and their feud) to join together in hopes of defeating the evil witches that have appeared in the world after a long time of dormancy.

It's always hard to have a sequel that lives up to the previous title; in this case a little bit of the magic (pun not intended, but it works) is lost. It felt like a great deal of the book was almost a sum up of what happened in the first (lengthy) title. Probably about a third of the book dealt with Wish and Xar separately, which is unfortunate but together they make a really fun team.

However, once the book really got going, then the charm of the previous title was back. There's adventure, humor, fantasy, and just a smidge of romance all mixed up in the pages of the story. The quirky illustrations help move things along, so this fairly thick tome reads pretty quickly.

The main story of this book is pretty well wrapped up by the end of it; however, it's clear that Cowell intends to write a third title for this series and sets up the ending for this. I can imagine that kids will really enjoy this series, especially those who are already fantasy fans. In all likelihood, I will pick up the next title in this series when it is published. ( )