Midnight Magic is an historical novel

Historical novel

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...

 for children and teenagers, written by Avi and published in hardcover in 1999

1999 in literature

The year 1999 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*June 19 - Stephen King is hit by a Dodge van while taking a walk. He spends the next three weeks hospitalized...

. It was reprinted in paperback in 2004.

Plot summary

Set in Italy, the story centers on Fabrizio, a twelve-year-old boy who truly enjoys serving his master Mangus the Magician. Mangus has been falsely accused of wizardry, when in reality he is merely an entertainer, and has been under house arrest

House arrest

In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...

 as a result. Fabrizio's use of tarot

Tarot

The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...

cards to predict the future, he believes, is the cause of disastrous consequences for himself and his master. The king's guard arrive to convey Mangus to the castle, where the king demands that Mangus save his daughter from a ghost. The ghost is the thought to be the dead prince. But really the prince is not dead: Count Scarazoni received a package in the mail, which was thought to be a sign of the prince dying, when in fact, this was just a trick of the prince. The count wants to become the ruler, so he orders the prince to be killed. When he learns that the prince has died, he plans to marry the princess to become the next king. Little does he know that the prince is alive, and a plot to kill him has been arranged by Count Scarazoni the evil traitor along with the help of Mr. Adetto the Princess Teresina's tutor, they evolve a plan to bring Scarazoni to justice. Mangus solves who is the ghost and turns out that the Queen was helping the princess Teresina. With making a plan of making a "the prince's ghost" so that he would tell the king about HIS death. So he would realize that Count Scarazoni sent a guard to kill the prince. But that is just when the prince's unicorn, Irving, attacks the princess almost killing her.