Bran Hambric The Fairfield Curse by Kaleb Nation

Six year old Bran Hambric was found inside a locked bank vault in the city of Dunce by bank manager Sewey with half a scrap of paper that stated only his name.  Under the finders keepers law of the city , Sewey and his family became his foster family.  Although, Bran doesn't remember any of his past, he still wonders about his mother and father.  At the age of fourteen, Bran comes face to face with a mysterious creature  that tries to kidnap him and drops half of a paper revealing a message from his mother.   Slowly,  Nation unfolds that Bran's mother was responsible for the creation of the Fairfield Curse and there are people out there that have been searching for Bran to complete what she started.  

I chose The Fairfield Curse after reading this on the back cover..."What if your mother was a criminal? What if her crime was magic? What if magic ran in the family?"  I was really intrigued by the idea that magic could be a crime.  Why would a mother become a criminal?  How would this affect Bran?   Add in that Bran now lives in a city where magic has been outlawed, so yeah so many questions that I wanted answered.   I knew there would be some mystery to solve and hoped to find a new and different take on magic.    I didn't anticipate that the mystery would take up such a large part of the story or that  the actual reasons behind the curse wouldn't unfold until over half the book was finished.  I also would have liked more about Bran's magical skills rather then have them be revealed inside books of magic or Missives of Magic that he finds inside a hidden library.  Because,  there are some really cool sounding magical abilities Netora the Physical, Comsar the Mental, Archon the Elemental, Illian the Illusional and Drimra the Mortal that I would have liked to explore more.   Overall, The Fairfield Curse has plenty of action and a mystery to solve, the recommended age range for the book is 9-12.  Others have made comparisons to Harry Potter, while I see the similarities there are still enough differences to make for an interesting read.