Review: The Great Fox Illusion by Justyn Edwards

⁓ Info ⁓

The Great Fox Illusion by Justyn Edwards

🖋 Author’s website
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⁓ Rating ⁓

⭐⭐⭐⭐

⁓ Review ⁓

The Great Fox Illusion is an exciting, magic-filled adventure with an interesting main character and some surprising twists. The magic is not the supernatural kind, however, but the magic trick kind!

The story is about a competition in which four young magicians face off to solve a mystery and find out which of them will be the successor to the Great Fox, a famous illusionist. The main character is Felicity “Flick” Lions, a 13-year-old magician who has a grudge against the Great Fox because she thinks he made her father leave her and her mother.

I really enjoyed reading about all the different magic tricks described in The Great Fox Illusion! This was the highlight of the book for me. The author brought up how men have dominated the magical trade, with women only supposed to play the role of assistants. Flick, with her impressive magic skills, shows that girls can be great at magic too! However, the book could also have mentioned some important female magicians like Adelaide Hermann and Dorothy Dietrich, along with the famous male magicians whose names come up.

Flick has a prosthetic leg in the story, and I appreciated how the author took this seriously by considering how it would affect her throughout the book. I also enjoyed seeing the friendship develop between Flick and Charlie, another young magician competing to be the next “Great Fox”. Together, the pair solve clues and deal with the nasty sabotage attempts of their fellow competitors while learning to trust each other in dangerous situations.

Ruby and Christina, a magician and a magician’s assistant, were less interesting to read about. Although Ruby is one of the competitors, she basically just follows the instructions of her magician brother. Christina is presented as flashy, superficial and without real knowledge of magic. I would have loved to see either Christina or Ruby show more personality and spunk. Maybe in the next book!

The storyline about Flick’s father is a little odd. The way the story is set up, readers expect Flick to come to realize that her idolized father was wrong to desert his family. However, the story goes in a different direction, which is disappointing for those who were hoping to see Flick learn to move on from the past and be more self-reliant.

There are some unexpected revelations at the end of the book, and I also liked how the story didn’t cut off abruptly. Instead, readers are given interesting insights into the lives of the main characters after the “grand finale”.

Overall, this book was lots of fun to read and made great use of magic tricks in the plot!

I recommend The Great Fox Illusion for readers who like puzzle-type mystery stories, and especially for those who would enjoy reading about magic tricks and magicians.

⁓ Would I read a sequel? ⁓

Yes, I’m eager to find out what will happen next to Flick and Charlie, as well as to see how magical tricks will continue to play a role in the series.