It's been six months since Tessa discovered that her elderly neighbor is actually a Phoenix Wizard, a discovery that was sparked by Professor Brandard's house burning down, and the old man transforming into a younger self. Unfortunately for the Professor/Brian, the ritual wasn't performed correctly and much of the Professor's knowledge is locked away. Where a majority of the first book, The Late Great Wizard, focused on Tessa and Brian uncovering The Professor's many hiding places in order to perform the ritual correctly, The New Improved Sorceress focuses on helping one of the new friends Tessa picked up along the way.
Tessa is contacted by Hiram Broadstone to help track down a precious artifact that has been in the Broadstone clan for many generations. What's worse, the magical properties that the Eye of Nimora bestows upon its holder have been helping keep the peace among the various dwarf clans for centuries. If it isn't found soon, the turmoil that has been slowly building up over the recent months could come to a climactic head.
So, Tessa decides to help her iron dwarf friend, along with helping Brian continue to find missing ingredients to his phoenix ritual, but of course, that isn't all that Tessa is going to have to contend with in this book. The growing and nebulous threat that is Malender continues to make his presence known to Tessa, while another friend, Steptoe, a demon, comes clean to her about his reasons for confronting the Professor the day his house went up in flames.
And then there's the situation with the strange magical stone that has decided to embed itself in Tessa's hand. The Maelstrom Stone has come in handy (no pun intended) quite a few times during Tessa's adventures, but when it decides to absorb the energies of a small magical book, it seems to unlock some dormant powers inside our heroine, making her a fledgling sorceress in her own right. Too bad the best teacher she has available doesn't have all of his memories.
Needless to say, Tessa's life is quite a busy one, and her adventures during this latest book are going to run her pretty ragged, but if she can survive the next few days, she could come out of it with a few more answers than she had before. Unfortunately, she will almost certainly have even more questions to ask as well.
The New Improved Sorceress: Wayward Mages - Book 2 isn't a great book, but it isn't bad either. The biggest complaint I have with this and the previous book is that Tessa seems to always have the right answer or do the right action, even when she has no business being correct. This book will have her deciding to fight hand-to-hand with an enemy and being able to get the upper hand, drawing on previously unmentioned fighting abilities, as well as a few other situations where she just happens to pull the right answer or action out of thin air. For a character that seems to have been thrust in a strange and unexpected world, she sure does get her footing fast and can deal with anything life throws at her. In my opinion, this just makes the book a little weaker than it could be. That being said, the setting and world of the Wayward Mages is interesting, I just find myself often looking a bit side longingly at what Tessa manages to pull off when the more powerful and informed characters that surround her appear to be worried about the situation in which they they find themselves.
