I read this book really quickly. When I am not reading, I love gaming and one of the franchises that I love playing - and reading is Assassins Creed. I really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down.

This is really a 4 1/2 stars review but there aren't actual halves so I was happy to round up.
First of all, I have never played Assassin's Creed, not because of any moral or philosophical stand about video games but rather as someone who peaked as a gamer in the late eighties and early nineties and didn't pick up again.
Second, knowing virtually nothing about the game made NO difference to my enjoyment of the novel. Kate Heartfield has written a gripping and fast-paced work. I really enjoyed it. The use of multiple viewpoints was as well done as anything I have read. The dialogue was delightful and natural. The characters were well-rounded and complex—the likable, very likable, and unlikeable ones well worth disliking.
Reading an uncorrected proof meant I encountered a couple of peculiarities but they didn't detract from my enjoyment.
My younger self disdained novels drawn from games or movies but I realize now it was because I hadn't encountered any good ones. If they had been as well-written and as enjoyable as this forty years ago . . . I would have had even more to read.

Assassin's Creed: The Magus Conspiracy was a so-so read for me. I am not a gamer, so my knowledge of Assassin's Creed comes solely from the 2016 movie. I therefore approached this book with a few expectations, but not too many. The plot was interesting enough; however, the pacing felt a little all over the place. My main issue, though, was that I could not bring myself to fully engage with or care about any of the characters, so there was no tension for me as I was reading about what would happen to them. The prose was fine, and there was nothing 'wrong' per se; it simply didn't capture me in the way I would have liked for this kind of story. If you are a fan of the franchise I am sure you will find the book enjoyable, but for me it was only an okay read and not a book I'd rush to reread in the future. It gets 3.5 stars from me.

If you love to read and love this game series you will love this book. It was interesting and helped pull me out of a reading slump.

In 1851 Simeon Price is aboard the HMS Birkenhead when the ship goes down and after trying to rescue his friends and shipmates from below decks he abandons ship and absconds from the army.
Meanwhile in England Pirrette is performing the closing act for the Aurora Troupe circus, an honour that has been afforded to against the gut feelings of the circus owner, Major Wallin. The amazing piece of action is going well until Pirrette sees three men attacking a woman in the audience and changes the act so she can rescue the woman. Thus our two major characters are set on a path that will bring them together to hunt for a shadowy character known as The Magus, who is searching for a weapon developed by Ada Lovelace, the woman Pirrette has rescued.
I had no idea that this book had a tie in with gaming and would say it can be read entirely as a stand alone - as I did. I loved the setting. The details of the ship, the Birkenhead, the worldwide developments like the Irish famine and the Indian mutinies, the descriptions of London at a time of horrendous pollution and poverty are all wonderful and very evocative.
I liked the characters - Pirrette is strong willed and fiesty, whilst Simeon is more principled and Kane is elusive and shadowy - they are well drawn and fitting.
The story moves along at a reasonable pace, with a fair amount of detailed action and keeps the reader engaged right to the end, with a couple of twists and turns as the characters wriggle themselves out of difficult situations.
Although there is no real magic the book has an other worldly air to it.
With thanks to Netgalley and Aconyte Books for the chance to read an arc copy in return for an honest review.

The Magus Conspiracy begins in 1851, with an action prologue taking us through the sinking of the HMS Birkenhead where we are introduced to the first of our two protagonists: Simeon Price. After a peculiar encounter with a hooded figure as the ship went down, he heads to Vienna to train beneath a man called Kane. Once a sailor, now an Assassin.

And our other followed character starts her journey in London. Pierrette, an acrobat and entertainer with a circus has a chance encounter with Ada Lovelace during one performance, and after becoming friends, the performer is given a strange notebook full of code and a name: Magus.

Both storylines bounce around Europe, before ending as we began, in London. The Assassin-Templar war that is so familiar through the Assassin’s Creed franchise is brought forth in new and inventive ways, with Heartfield nailing the assignment in every single chapter. In an interview with Ubisoft she mentioned that she tried to bring across the style of the games but into the written format, and it wholeheartedly comes across.

Heartfield is an amazing author; her writing is enthralling, with even the smallest moments captivating. In particular, her descriptions of Pierrette’s acrobatics and the circus tricks were so vivid I could picture them as I read on. It fits perfectly into the genre of action-adventure video games in which the book is written for. My heart was pounding through every fight scene, in utter awe at every beautiful literary skyline.