It is a very unmagical story. :P The very short version is that in sixth grade, the boy who will forever be my mental prototype of a 'nice guy' was really, really into them, and tried very hard to get me to read them, but at the time, for several reasons, one of which was that at the time I was actively avoiding any fantasy books set in the 'real world', I refused to read them.

I was really really into Star Trek at the time, though, and around the same time Nice Guy moved across the country, I got really obsessed with Diane Duane's Star Trek novels, and later her Tale of the Five books. I didn't get around to trying Young Wizards until several years later, because of the bad start I got with them, but once I started I zoomed right through all the ones that were out at the time (It was sometime in the long gap between "Abroad" and "Dilemma".)

And yes, the NME ebooks are a complete set now! You just missed the 50% off Black Friday sale in the author's ebook store but she will probably do another one before too long.