Emma Connor is relieved that all her troubles are over: she's got the guy, Brendan Salinger - her eternal soul mate; she's got a new best friend, Angelique; she's starting to settle in at her new school, despite the snobs; and she's learning to harness her newfound witch powers. But when something - or someone - begins to threaten not just her, but everyone Emma loves, she finds herself in a difficult situation. Innocents are being harmed while her true love with Brendan is being endangered by secrets and distrust. And as it turns out, Emma can't focus well enough to master any spells - so how can she use magic to protect the people being targeted? Emma will have to decide how much to put at stake when the consequences are greater than just her own life.
Since I very much enjoyed the first book in this series, when I saw this novel, I immediately picked it up. When I've read others in the series, I tend not the skim the back summary. I did that with this book, instead deciding to just dive right in. It's been a few months since I read Spellbound, so I'd obviously forgotten some of the more trivial details. However, I found that Cara Lynn Shultz did an excellent job at merging new and old information, which sparked my memory. It wasn't like some other stories I've read, where the reader must suffer through pages of recall in order to catch up a reader who may not have read previous books in the series. I found there was way too much remembering and not enough new topics in any book in The Babysitters Club series, for example. This book was much more skilled at blending old details with new information, which I appreciated. Not only could I remember and enjoy the details given, but a new reader to the series would be easily caught up without getting confused.
One thing I didn't like about this book - and all books that do this in general - was the need to introduce a new character in order to provide a new storyline. This shows that book two wasn't thought up at the time that book one was written, which can lead to contradictions and other problems later in the series. Even if this character was given, just for one scene, or at least mentioned in the earlier book, it would prove that more thought had been put into sequels and the series as a whole at one time, as opposed to creating new ideas as the series comes along. New thoughts that are added after book one can change the characters' personalities, or whole situations. If the antagonist in Spellcaster had been referred to in some way in the first book in this series, I would have appreciated the storyline more.
One thing I find interesting about Shultz's writing style is how personable and close Emma seems to the reader. She's not afraid to share intimate thoughts and she thinks as though most teenagers do think. There are some books which feature teens thinking as an adult does, not an actual person of that age. In this story, the reader can hear all of Emma's questions and conclusions as if Emma were thinking them right that moment - not as though they've already been processed and checked. While reading, I couldn't decide whether I liked this style or not. I enjoyed how it was closer to accuracy in terms of teenagers' thoughts - however, I also found it to be somewhat abrupt and very different. I suppose that was the main thing - I wasn't used to that style.
Overall, I found that I did enjoy Spellcaster. Like Spellbound, it was a good and interesting read which provided humor and seriousness packaged into one novel. I would give it a rating of four stars. Just like Spellbound, I very much enjoyed it, but it wasn't extraordinary. Sometimes it's very hard to differentiate between a good, great, or excellent book. On my scale, this was a great. I would suggest this novel to any reader in search of curses, secrets, and revenge.
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