Bane of Kings writes a short review of Raven’s Gate by Anthony Horowitz in the Power of Five series.

“The First in an epic Young Adult series.” ~The Founding Fields

Now then, Raven’s Gate is the first in the latest young adult’s series by Anthony Horowitz. Although released some time ago, I’ve finally got around to reading it. After all, I was a huge fan of his other popular young adult novels, the Alex Rider Series. The story focuses on a young, fourteen year old boy called Matt Freeman, who, is fostered by an eerie old woman in Yorkshire. There, he discovers that things are all about to go horribly wrong, and his life will never be the same again.

Having finished the book recently, I must say that I couldn’t put it down. There’s a reason why this novel is one of my favourites. Horowitz gives us a superb book, with plenty of action, and thrilling horror that go together well with the modern day setting. The description’s pretty neat, and is a welcoming break from the bolter and chainsword fights of the forty-first millennium. This book kept me reading well into the night, and left me eager to find out more.

Now, the characters in this novel are superb. You get people from all types of backgrounds, and there’s also plenty of character development.

For those of you unfamiliar with Anthony Horowitz, think of this novel as a sort of cross between the young James Bond books, Night at the Museum and Harry Potter. However, this book easily defeats the popular Harry Potter series in my opinion and is one of Horowitz’s best. Sure, you may guess the ending about halfway through the book, but still the novel is an enjoyable read, with Horowitz combining modern world realism with an evil fantasy setting.

Oh, and believe me, there’s a reason why I added Night at the Museum. And it’s not for the humour.

There are a few bad things about this novel however, one of these things being that it wasn’t really fleshed out as it could have been, and a lot of questions left unanswered but seeing as The Power of Five is a series, we can let Horowitz off for that.

However, true to the early Horowitz horror short stories, there is a lot of graphic violence in this novel which will please fans of the Horror genre.

Verdict: 4/5

 More Power of Five: Raven’s Gate, Evil Star, Nightrise, Necropolis and Oblivion (Coming Soon)