Amazon Christina Clarry www.troubador.co.uk Category:  Children Publisher: Matador ISBN-10:  1785898353 Type: Fiction Pages: 286 Copyright: 2017 ISBN-13: 9781785898358 A humorous, exciting tale of the wars between good and evil armies of wizards and witches which is ideal for fans of fantasy stories aged 7 years upwards. Modern wizards and witches are leading extraordinary, peaceful lives hidden from the rest of the world. Breaking an ancient truce, backward, outrageous, evil wizards and witches launch an attack on their old enemy. Armed with outmoded weapons and trying to use mystical creatures that they cannot control, they fight amongst themselves for power. As good and evil forces clash, four young wizards and witches find themselves in perilous situations. In a twist of fate the are forced into an unexpected showdown. This story is full of ferocious dragons, unpredictable zilants and a zany snake. There is gross humour involving the evil characters and their foul and wacky habits. All this has been thrown into a cauldron and stirred until a book for children emerged to amuse and entertain them.        Excerpt The excerpt below pinpoints one of the idiotic mistakes made by the evil side in choosing zilants to join them in battle and the power struggles for leadership. As the sun went down, they all gathered in a clearing. It was time to call up the zilants. They were apprehensive about these dangerous creatures. Hecate’s warning words rang in their heads. Vulpor looked at Hecate. ‘You’re the witch who is petrified of the zilants. Let’s see you cast the spell to bring them here,’ he ordered. Hecate realised that he was either too scared to call up the zilants himself or he was too stupid to know which spell to use. It was both! She waved her wand in an easterly direction and screeched, ‘Zilants! Veni!’ There was a deathly silence. No one dared breathe. Eventually, in the distance, loud hissing could be heard. It grew louder and louder. Massive elongated shadows appeared above the clearing. One by one, huge winged snakes dropped down and landed on legs that were scaly and had claws like dragons! They looked sinister and absolutely terrifying. The Deadly Wizards and Witches took several steps back and wondered if Vulpor had made a grave mistake. Vulpor was thinking the same thing! Only one figure stood her ground. It was Hecate. She stared into the angry yellow eyes of the largest zilant. It had landed in front of her and appeared to be the leader of the creatures. The zilant was mesmerised by her piercing green eyes. They both appeared to go into a hypnotic trance. It was a battle of wills. The air was charged with electricity. Vulpor had lost his tongue and was outraged that Hecate wasn’t cringing in terror like everyone else. He was petrified of the zilants and waited, like the others, to see what would happen next. He hoped the zilant would swallow Hecate and save him the trouble of dealing with her! Hecate produced a vial of one of her potions from her robe. Still keeping her eyes locked on the zilant, she unscrewed the vial and waved it under the zilant’s nostrils. Its eyes glazed over and it bowed its head. Hecate had won the battle of wills by blocking the zilant’s resistance. The other zilants would follow her now! She had control of their leader. She leapt onto the zilant’s back and yelled, ‘I AM TAKING CHARGE! I now command the zilants and those who will follow me … choose a zilant to ride!’ It was a master class in stealing power. Every one of them, except Vulpor, mounted a zilant. They had little choice. If they didn’t side with Hecate, she would feed them to the zilants! Hecate looked scornfully at Vulpor, ‘I am taking you prisoner! You WILL come with MY Dark Army. You WILL complete our spells with your repulsive sneezes.’ She unleashed a long whip and with one stroke she cracked it. It whipped through the air and wrapped around Vulpor. He was bound hand and foot by it. Hecate turned to her new followers. ‘You will obey MY orders now.

5 ***** on Amazon.co.uk

JC ex library manager reviewed The Great Wizard Wars
New kid on the block. 26 January 2017
An enjoyable fantasy which was a pleasure to read, with characters that are believable and engaging. The baddie Cryptor is so vile he makes you want to hiss or boo when his character is to the fore of the plot. Fango, the little dragon is adorable and will appeal to all children from nine to ninety nine. As with all good tales , good usually prevails.


THAT'S BOOKS review
The Great Wizard Wars is a fantastic new novel for children of 7 to 11 years of age and their mums, dads, grandparents and older siblings who might like to read it with their children.

It's an exciting story about the battle between good and not so good (well, bad, really!) wizards.

Many, many years previously, there had been a terrible wizarding war, which had caused untold misery until eventually, common sense had prevailed and a binding truce had been signed.

Now, modern witches and wizards are going about their professional, yet extraordinary, lives in a peaceful and peaceable manner, keeping themselves hidden from the rest of humanity.

However, the ancient truce has been smashed in two and a Dark Army of witches and wizards with evil and mayhem on their minds has arisen and it is their avowed aim to destroy the descendants of their foes, the good witches and wizards of long, long ago.

Well, that was the plan. The reality is a good deal more comical than you might presume. For the evil witches and wizards are backward and despicable and they launch their attacks on the modern, peaceable witches and wizards with magical weapons that are just so out of date, it's unbelievable!

They also have control over some remarkable scary mystical creatures who they can employ to do their evil bidding! But not really! For the mystical creatures all have mystical minds of their own and which are completely out of the control of the bad witches and wizards!

The bad witches and wizards also cannot decide who should be their leaders, so they begin fighting amongst themselves in a truly mind-blowing way!

Four heroic young witches and wizards find themselves in dangerous situations. A curious twist of fate forces them to participate in a very unforeseen showdown.

It's a wild and very interesting read -I think you'll like Gnashers the giant talking snake- and it will be a welcome addition to the Christmas stockings of many a young boy and girl this Chirstmas.