The Secret Commonwealth

Pullman's second volume in the sequel trilogy to His Dark Materials, The Secret Commonwealth is, like the Lyra depicted within its pages, very much all grown up. Whereas La Belle Sauvage, the first book, was dreamlike and fantastical, almost mythic in it's scope, The Secret Commonwealth is darker, crueler and rooted in a world beset by violence and unrest.
Lyra is a student at Oxford as the books opens, still studying the Alethiometer (although not as instinctively as she did when younger) and increasingly at odds with her daemon (a sort of conscience made manifest) Pantalaimon, who thinks she has “lost her imagination” through reading the works of avant garde philosophers. When Pantalaimon witnesses a murder it sets in motion a dangerous tide of events that turns Lyra's world upside down. She becomes the target of the unwelcome attentions of the CCD, the secret police of the Magisterium (this world's version of the Catholic Church) and argues so much with Pantalaimon that he leaves her to go and “find her imagination”.
Devastated, Lyra must trust in the help of the shadowy intelligence service known as Oakley Street, even as dark forces close in and she has to flee for her life as well as to find her daemon. Helped by Professor Malcolm Polstead (the same Malcolm from La Belle Sauvage who had rescued her as a baby) and the Gyptians, Lyra sets off on a perilous journey across Europe and into a Middle East beset by troubles.
Meanwhile the Magisterium's whizz kid Alethiometer reader, Olivier Bonneville, is on her trail, reporting to Marcel Delamare, Lyra's power hungry uncle. Bonneville is the son of the crazed Bonneville from the first book, whom Malcolm had killed, and his heart is full of vengeance.
Pullman traces the separate journeys of Lyra, Pantalaimon, Polstead and Bonneville as they converge on a place known only as “The Blue Hotel” somewhere near Aleppo in Syria, where it is said daemons separated from their humans live. The world depicted here teeters on the edge of chaos, with the Magisterium and a shadowy corporation known as Thuringia Potash vying for control of a special type of Rosewater derived from roses grown in the desert of Kamarkan, which enables the user to “see” particles of Dust. Rose growers have their garden destroyed, are driven from their homes and livelihoods. Refugees flee the area. Soldiers patrol everywhere.
This is a big book, but it never feels like a long read. It is very much a “page turner' which is testament to Pullman's skill as a writer. There is violence and cruelty here, and the book is in no way a “children's novel”. The themes are adult, dealing with power, vengeance, religion and capitalism. Lyra suffers on her journey and by the end of the book she is barely holding it together. The book ends with the words “to be continued”. I await the final book in the trilogy with bated breath.
Highly recommended.

I am really glad this sequel exists and am waiting patiently for the next one. This does not feel the same as the original series, but Lyra is different herself so it shouldn't. Do not read this if you just want a happy story with some kind of Will reunion because this is not that. It's complicated and I found it irritating because I just wanted to shake the characters and tell them to figure it out! But I found it to be a realistic version of events post-HDM and it's fun to get to see more of Lyra growing up and dealing with life. If you loved the original series and want more, this is a good read. 

Where to start?? I felt like the book dragged for the first half but after sticking with it, it got much better and the action started :) I truly did not like Lyra or Pan at the start of the book (which is saying a lot because I love them in “His Dark Materials”). However, Lyra started growing on me in the second half and is coming back to the character I loved in the first triology. I'm a little upset it ended on a cliffhanger even though I know a 3rd book is coming out. Overall, a solid story with great character development and great action.