Review: Magical
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 21, 2012
Truth and Lies Past and Present: Katy Lily Book 1Katy Lily is a very young girl that lost her mother 3 years before and lives on the streets. Walking down the road one day she finds a letter on the ground. The letter is addressed to her. It tells her that she has been accepted to a school of magic, Bridgett's School for the Magical Arts. It told her to remain in New York and that someone would be by to pick her up to take her to get school supplies. Mystified, Katy put it out of her mind, hoping it was real, but believing it was not.Lo and Behold, someone does find her, Antonio, and  he took her from New York and introduced her to the world she should have lived in since birth. Not wanting to leave her on the streets, he took her home to his family. His mother and father instantly sort of adopted her, and there she stayed until school started.Katy had found out that she was magical born, a fire element, and she had the scar to prove it. The school was based on the elements, Fire, Air, Earth, Water, and Spirit. It also introduces you to pagan holidays, as that is what the school calendar goes by. She learns so much, and yet so little about the new life she is leading. Once at school she instantly made a best friend, Gaivan. Shunned by the girls in her dorm (Fire), Gaivan was all she had.The book follows Katy through her first year at school. Katy Lily realizes that she is proficient at all types of magic, and can even control other elements besides her own.  She joins the school's sport team, even though they usually do not let 1st years play, and she has adventures that will blow your mind. She finds out that she has a brother and a father, and instant controversy stems from this, as there was a prophecy about Katy. I do not want to go into much more detail, because I do not want to ruin the book, but it a magical story that is so worth picking up.I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  As an avid Harry Potter fan, it instantly brought the magic back. It is similar to Harry Potter in some aspects, but besides that, it holds its own as an original work. If you loved the world of Harry Potter though, and cried when the series ended (as I did!), you will love to open this book and feel like you have found another world filled with magic and adventure. Even though I compare it to Harry Potter, let me stress, besides the similarities between the two, Katy Lily and her world are as original. It is a story worth reading and a new world to discover. I hope you take the leap into the pages and lose yourself in this world. Katy has many more years of school left, and I cannot wait to read about them all.The only issues I had with the book were that the children acted and talked way older than they were, but I guess that could just stem from the responsibilities put on them at such a young age by having to learn and control magic and the secrecy that comes with it. I give this book 4 stars!