This book is a wild, layered ride through parallel realms, ancient magic, and the heavy weight of choice.... I’d recommend this to fantasy lovers who enjoy stories with heart, brains, and a talking cat .... Especially great for fans of His Dark Materials, A Wrinkle in Time, or early Harry Potter, but with a slightly older, more introspective twist. Literary Titan Review -April 2025
Wishes and Choices includes many cornerstones of the fantasy genre, but whips them together in a manner that is immersive and riveting. The BookLife Prize. June 12, 2025
Realms-crossing adventures and a great wizard test a young teen. Editor's Pick, BookLife Review 9/2/24
In Book Two, MorKano's Choice, the "wild, layered ride through parallel realms, ancient magic, and the heavy weight of choice..." of Book One, Mythral's Choice, continues with a story that "blends magic, time inversion, dark wizards, dragons, gryphons, and a layered three-realm world..." Literary Titian Reviews 2025 and 2026.
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In this captivating coming-of-age fantasy, Mythral, the greatest wizard in the Three Realms, foresees his own death at the hands of the dark wizard MorKano. This forces him to confront the possibility that his greatest weakness lies not in his enemies but in his refusal to trust anyone enough to take on an apprentice. His reluctant choice falls upon 13-year-old Kit, an unusually perceptive girl from Realm One whose greatest wish is simple: “one good adventure.” As Kit is introduced to the hidden world of the Three Realms, danger looms over mentor and apprentice, forcing them to confront a future that seems impossible to change.
Thomas crafts a rich fantasy world populated by wise mentors, dark wizards, enchanted gemstones, magical creatures, and an ever-expanding catalog of spells. What distinguishes this novel is its treatment of time. Thomas treats time as a character in its own right, shaping every choice and consequence through a nonlinear Time-Path and prompting age-appropriate questions about fate and free will—plus brain-bending complexities that inspire declarations like “Let’s say, ‘simultaneously,’ rather than ‘at the same time’ to avoid extra confusion.” Equally compelling is Cat, the blue-gray feline narrator, whose metafictional commentary offers engaging self-awareness. Supporting characters enrich the narrative, but Nate’s cryptic remark to Mythral that Kit is “the end of who you were…and the beginning of what will be” best encapsulates the novel’s looping mysteries.
Beneath the fantasy adventure arc lies an exploration of how every choice ripples across time. Mythral’s lessons to Kit extend beyond magic, becoming reflections on trust, responsibility, and human nature—“all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” At times, these digressions and repeated explanations of magical theory and temporal mechanics slow the narrative. Still, the engaging prose, interior logic, and unfolding mysteries will reward readers of thoughtful fantasy that values ideas as much as adventure.
Takeaway: Smart middle-grade fantasy powered by time loops, magic, and thoughtful explorations of fate and free will.
Great for fans of: Jasmine Richards’s Secrets of Valhalla, Rucker Moses and Theo Gangi’s Theo and the Magician’s Lost and Found.
