The Wizards of Once: Knock Three Times: Book 3

I was lucky to receive an arc copy of Wizards of Once Knock Three Times by Cressida Cowell and I was over the moon via Netgalley. I had already pre-ordered the book as I thoroughly enjoyed Wizards of Once and Wizards of Once Twice Magic but I have to admit to you that I was scared to read Knock Three Times mainly because I did not want the story to end and not be able to read about Xar,Wish and Bodkin and their adventures with their motley crew of Snow Leopards, Sprites to name but a few made me rather sad. So i only read it this month and I am happy that Cressida has kept up the momentum in Knock Three Times by introducing new characters, a couple of relevations which added to the story as well as her amazing self drawn illustrations. Cressida has ramped up the story that I cannot wait for the 4th and final book which is coming out September 2020 called Never and Forever which again I have pre-ordered. For these reasons I am giving this amazing book 5 stars

I seem to have a love/meh relationship with this series and in fact with Cressida Cowell's writing in general as I gave up on the HTTYD series after 3 books.After reading book 1, I enjoyed the world and the characters of Wish and Xar enough to try book 2. I really liked book 2 and thought the series had hit its stride. There was plenty of mystery and humour. Plus the characters developed and we got some interesting backstory. So I went into book 3 excited to continue this journey.Book 3 feels a bit like someone hit the pause button on the action. The story follows on from the escape at the end of book 2. The main characters (and their never ending list of followers - do we really need this many extras? What was the point of the werewolf, the bear or the wolves in this story?) are flying through the forest. After the first few chapters, they enter a place of safety and pretty much stay there for most of the novel except the conclusion.I like magic school settings quite a bit but in this book we are just told the characters eat, recover and go to lessons. There doesn't seem to be much danger or conflict to move the story along. I also got a bit fed up of many characters feeling the need to break into song spontaneously and skimmed over these bits.Wish and Xar are my favourite characters. Wish because she is so pure and lovely, thinking the best of everyone and being so accepting of all and Xar because he exaggerates so much and gets into so much trouble, but has a good heart deep down. However, we saw a lot less from these characters, even though they were in many of the scenes, they just had less to say and I missed that.The conclusion was action packed and had lots of little mysteries and puzzles for you to try and work out as you followed along, which is what I loved from the second book. Hopefully, things will get back on track in book 4.

We are huge Cressida Cowell fans and have read all of the How to Train your Dragon books and we loved Book 1 and 2. This one is great too but there was a change in the plot from book 2 to extend it past a trilogy and it seemed to be written in a hurry & the editing wasn't 100%.

The next step in a magical journey - only down side is that illustrations look too similar to those from Cowell's Dragon series. The story is different and we enjoy every minute of bedtime reading.

Another great book, my 9 year old as read all 3 books and dnjoyed them all. She loves the story line and all the magic! A good trilogy for fans of magic and adventure...