Hey guys! Back again, today I am going to give you a book review of the next part of The Magic Misfits series- The Magic Misfits 2 The Second Story. In this one, we get Leila’s backstory before The Magic Misfits happened and it introduces another Emerald Ring member, Madame Esmeralda, or aka Sandra Santos.
WHOLE SUMMARY:
1st Plot-Madame Esmeralda
The Magic Misfits get a mysterious visit from a Madame Esmeralda, also known as Sandra Santos who is a stage psychic. They learn that Sandra was one of Dante’s friends and that she was a member of the Emerald Ring which was Leila’s dad Dante Vernon’s childhood magical club along with Lyle Locke (Carter’s dad), Bobby Boscowitz (B.B Bosso) and other members.
She claims to be a clairvoyant, which The Magic Misfits are intrigued by, but Ridley isn’t as fascinated as them as she repeatedly tries to prove that she isn’t a real psychic but a fraud. She claims to be in Mineral Wells for a show in the hotel and The Magic Misfits want to watch her but they also want to investigate an incident in the hotel that they overhear from Mr. Vernon.
They discover a few memories of the Emerald Ring such as etchings of initials and the incident that was caused by one of the members, Kalagan. By discovering this, they now realise that Kalagan, is getting dangerous and may be coming after them soon.
^I like these kinds of plot tropes where there is a group of people with a special trait and there is one person who gets a bit extreme about it and is then cast off from the group and the whole group goes off in their separate directions before an event in the future puts the extreme person back into the group.
2nd plot- Leila’s past
Another plot that occurs in this book is Leila trying to remember her past before she was in Mother Margaret’s Home for Children. A flashback back to her life in the home starts at the beginning of the book. Her name wasn’t always Leila Vernon and she didn’t always live in Mineral Wells. In fact, she was first named Leila Doe because nobody knew who her family was before Dante Vernon and The Other Mr. Vernon adopted her.
My book review for this is that this second part was really good at explaining Leila’s past before she became a Magic Misfit and telling more background on the members of the Emerald Ring especially the introduction of Madame Esmeralda. I love that they gave a description of Madame Esmeralda which gave the viewers a sense of who she was as a person and her mysterious personality. I also love her magic skill which is claimed to be clairvoyance, as it adds to her mystical personality.
Some parts of the book that I elaborated on –
I was, however, sad that she was apart of B.B Bosso’s gang but she did seem guilty about it afterward which is relieving because she knew what she did was wrong and didn’t want to do it at times, for example at her show itself when they wanted her to say something she didn’t want to, she had to ask for several audience members to come up on stage, which was the frown clowns themselves and, she uses her magical skill to present the spirits of the audience members’ families which was all fake at the end.
^When Sandra ‘claimed’ that Leila’s parents were here looking for her, at first I was shocked that they came to Mineral Wells to look for Leila but I was kinda suspicious because after all this time they suddenly want to look for her, but I went along with it and then when we got introduced to the parents, I was glad that Leila wasn’t as gullible to believe that her parents had come to see her, after all this time, and she was still close to her current family, The Vernons.
She knew that the only way to check if the people were her real birth parents, she would ask them if they know anything about the key that she wore as a necklace around her neck. Unfortunately, when the birth parents want Leila, Carter and The Vernons to come to a meeting with 2 lawyers to finalise decisions about getting her back, it’s revealed that the birth parents don’t know anything about Leila’s key necklace and suspiciously Carter recognises the song that 1 of the lawyers was humming to be the song that the frown clowns used to sing in the first book.
^I was shocked by this but not too shocked as I kinda thought that the frown clowns from the first book would come back for them but this was a good twist in the book.
He discusses his suspicions with Leila who agrees with him through morse code and their suspicions are confirmed when The Vernons disagree with Leila going back to her birth family and want to leave the meeting. They are stopped by the lawyers and birth parents who are all revealed to be the frown clowns. I wasn’t surprised but it was cruel to make Leila think that her birth parents would come to see her. When they lock Leila, Carter and The Vernons up in a basement cellar room, they see a similar door that they found back at the hotel with the other Misfits but still couldn’t figure how to open it, Dante gives them a hint and they finally open the door to a tunnel.
^I loved this part of the book as it surprised me but not too much. It was captivating when we got an insight into Leila’s mind about her struggle between choosing to get back with her birth parents or her current parents now.
That’s it for the second book.
Comment down below who do you want to see more of and/or who do you want to see from the Emerald Ring that hasn’t appeared yet?
Also, comment on what were your favourite parts of the book?
Thebookaholic 