Monday 17 February 2014

Spellcaster by Claudia Gray


Synopsis (from Goodreads)

Pages: 389
Publisher: Harper Teen
Released: 5th of March 2013

When Nadia’s family moves to Captive’s Sound, she instantly realizes there’s more to it than meets the eye. Descended from witches, Nadia senses a dark and powerful magic at work in her new town. Mateo has lived in Captive’s Sound his entire life, trying to dodge the local legend that his family is cursed - and that curse will cause him to believe he’s seeing the future … until it drives him mad. When the strange dreams Mateo has been having of rescuing a beautiful girl—Nadia—from a car accident come true, he knows he’s doomed. 

Despite the forces pulling them apart, Nadia and Mateo must work together to break the chains of his family’s terrible curse, and to prevent a disaster that threatens the lives of everyone around them. 


What I Have To Say


A lot of YA books with a witch or any other supernatural creature as the main character tend to start out the same way, with the character discovering her powers. And so it's really refreshing when a book like Spellcaster comes along and we're instantly reading about a character who knows what she's doing and isn't making the same stupid, naive mistakes that all the characters in other books make. Not that those books aren't just as fun to read. 


The other thing I felt set this book apart from the others in this genre and made it special was the way that magic was used. Spell books and cauldrens and all things witchy are all quite rare in YA books these days, but this  combines a more traditional way of spell work, with spells and books and ingredients, with a concept of using emotions and memories as ingredients for spells, creating a completely fascinating and rich method of magic that I have never seen before. 

If you like books about magic and danger with strong main characters who are intelligent enough to know they're not well trained enough to handle the danger they're in, the Spellcaster would be a very good choice. 

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