Spellcaster

Spellcaster
Cara Lynn Schultz
384 pages
Publisher: HarlequinTeen
Source: the publisher via NetGalley
★★★☆☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

SPOILER ALERT: This review may have spoilers from Spellbound.

Spellcaster is the second novel in the Spellbound trilogy.  After finding her soulmate and his having battled to save her life in a dramatic scene, we find Emma in Spellcaster trying to harness is her powers as a witch and get back to regular life.  Of course, there are cliques at her high school who are disgusted to see her with Brendan, since he's the hottest guy in school.  Soon something bigger is going on, though - an evil force hell bent on testing Emma's new powers and the strength of her relationship with Brendan.

There were things I found awesome about this novel, but frankly there were also things that made me a little bored. Spellcaster seemed really similar to Spellbound to me.  Sure there was a new problem for Emma to face but the plot was pretty similar, I thought.  Honestly, I wasn't really drawn into the novel until the climax and ending.

But there were things I liked!  I thought it was pretty intense how Megan, the aforementioned evil force, started using Emma's closest friends and family to get to her.  Emma's innocent cousin, for example, get sucked into a coma when one of Megan's spells is misdirected.  Megan even uses Brendan agains Emma in a very interesting way.  I won't tell you specifically what happened since I thought it was a highpoint of the novel and you should read for yourself, but I will tell you I found it scary and suspenseful enough that I kept reading to the end of the novel instead of going to bed.

Spellcaster gets three stars from me.  If you like YA novels about modern witches or you like novels about snooty Upper-East-Siders, this is a series for you.  Spellcaster will be released March 27th so there is plenty of time to get a copy of Spellbound and get started on this series.