The Wishing Stone
A mythical relic believed to have the ability to grant any wish.
A map, leading the way through ancient and sealed catacombs.
Gam Gam's return to Capital City is not what she expected when she stumbles upon her first clue to the Wishing Stone's whereabouts. Joined by Mina and her new friend Emil, along with the undead retinue of Nugget, Sloughy, and Gerald, they set out to uncover secrets that could unravel more than just their lives.-Goodreads
Title: The Wishing Stone
Series: Chronicles of Gam Gam #2
Author: Adam Holcombe
Page Count: 144
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4.5/5.0
Date Read: October 30th, 2024
Opening
After really enjoying A Necromancer called Gam Gam by Adam Holcombe, I knew I wanted to keep an eye on this author and series. As we were closing in on October, I found out the second book from the series was due to release just in time for me to make The Wishing Stone my Halloween read.
Pacing
The pacing of The Wishing Stone lined up great for me. I was still in my recovery stage from so many longer epic reads and this helped reset my reading vibes. This is a shorter book but still reads very much like a full length novel to me. It's a very steady pace with a good mix of eb and flow to the story. I didn't have any issues with names of locations or characters to trip me up, nor did I come across many serious editing issues either.
World Building
The world building continues to be very entertaining to me. With this book I found myself becoming more familiar with the world in general whether that is regional and history or the unique magic. I don't think I noticed in the first read but I found myself focusing on the fact that the different magic users were all some sort of "mancer" and even the elemancers have different power focuses such as a stone elemancer who specializes in using their ability as it relates to, well stone.
When the story moves to the fortress and seeing what these magics can do, things got so very interesting for me. It was nice to see Mina start to come into her own with her abilities this time around.
Character Development
That brings us to our character development. As we are plenty familiar with Mina, Gam Gam and their crew of undead we got to see some continued growth from both. We see Gam Gam even grow a bit as her relationship with Mina grows even stronger. We see a rather large growth for Mina as she begins to learn what she is truly capable of with her neuromancer powers.
We also learn of some new supporting characters in which Emil was a solid addition. Even if his arrival seemed rather abrupt we still see his own arc growthy in this short read.
Closing
This has become such a fun and cozy type of short read that I even grabbed a couple more short reads from the author's website that I'm sure I'll sprinkle in over the next couple of months. I will also be looking for more full stories from this author and series in the future.
If you haven't had a chance to read A Necromancer Called Gam Gam and are looking for a short cozy feel good story with plenty of undead minions, you should definitely pick that one up. If you've already read the previously mentioned book and enjoyed it, what are you waiting for? Go pick up a copy of The Wishing Stone as it's more of the same theme but we are getting to know these characters and this world even more.
Scoring
Pacing 4.75 / 5.0
Worldbuilding 4.5 / 5.0
Character Development 4.5 / 5.0
