Title: Spellcaster (Spellcaster #1)
Author: Claudia Gray
Genre: magic, paranormal romance, witches
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: 1st March 2013
Pages: 400
Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis (goodreads):
When Nadia′s family moves to Captive′s Sound, she immediately realises there′s more to the place than meets the eye. Descended from witches, Nadia can sense that a spell has been cast over the tiny Rhode Island town – a sickness infecting everyone and everything in it. The magic at work is darker and more powerful than anything she′s come across, and the person it has affected most is Mateo – her rescuer, friend and the guy she yearns to get closer to, even though he pushes her away.
Mateo′s family have a tormented past and it soon becomes evident that Mateo is the next member of his family to be cursed, particularly when the strange dreams Mateo has been having of rescuing a beautiful girl from a car accident actually come true.
Despite the forces pulling them apart, Nadia and Mateo must work together to break his terrible family curse and prevent a coming disaster that threatens the entire town, including Nadia′s family, her newfound friends and her own life.
My Review:
Captive’s Sound. A small town in the middle of Rhode Island where Nadia Caldini’s father decides to transplant his family after his wife walked out on them all.
Sounds innocuous enough. Except as soon they cross the city limits, Nadia can feel a magical barrier surrounding her new family’s new home. Oh and her Book of Shadows reacts badly with the strange magic and causes their car to careen off the road and into a lake. It would have been fatal if not for Mateo Perez coming to her rescue and saving her from drowning.
Mateo has secrets of his own. A family curse and visions of the future plaguing his dreams haunt his days and nights. There’s more to Captive’s Sound that meets the eye and Nadia – along with new best friend Verlaine and mystery man Mateo – needs a way to break the curse and save the town from the Evil lurking underneath.
Spellcaster captivated me from the first page. There’s action from the start. And the plot entranced me. I loved reading what was going to happen next. The principles that dictate the magical world in which the book is set fascinated me. The way spells are formulated as well as the rules that govern the Craft that Nadia studies are not something I’ve seen before. I looked forward to each new spell being cast.
The characters are exciting. Nadia is a strong and capable young woman. She acknowledges the fact that she has so much to learn in terms of her magical skill but she refuses to give up on those she loves. She is willing to sacrifice herself but only when she has exhausted all other possible options. I admired her attitudes to life and magic. Considering his curse and the way he was brought up – Mateo is a shadow of a person when compared to Nadia. But he’s willing to embrace her and her weirdness that she’s brought to Captive’s Sound. Verlaine is an interesting character but I felt (much like the citizens of the small town) she tended to drift to the background and was rather forgettable.
This book is written in the form of many different people’s point of views. I counted at least six (one containing a creepy crow with cobwebs for eyes) with some taking up most of the novel and one being only a few paragraphs in the entire story. At times it felt a little overwhelming that there were so many different voices trying to be heard. With all of the points of views all being in the same font and all having the same tone, sometimes it was difficult to differentiate between them.
For the plot alone, Spellcaster was a win for me. I will be keeping an eye out for the next book in the series to be released and will make time to read some of the older Claudia Gray books that I bought and haven’t gotten around to reading yet…
Thanks to The Reading Room and HarperCollins Australia for providing me with a copy to review.
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