Spellcaster by Claudia Gray

I previously read the Evernight series by Claudia Gray last year, and I knew with Spellcaster that I should expect the unexpected. But after reading this book, I didn’t really come across any big surprises.

The book begins with a teenaged girl named Nadia who is with her family and they are on their way to a new town. Their mom left them a few months earlier, and they are trying to have a new start. But Nadia isn’t who she seems to be. She’s actually a witch, as was her mother, and her mother was in the middle of teaching her when she took off leaving Nadia’s training incomplete. On their way into Capture’s Sound, Nadia feels a magical barrier surrounding the town and when her father hits the barrier it causes the car to go out of control. The car crashes and a stranger, named Mateo comes to Nadia’s aid. The reason Mateo was able to come to her aid? He’s been dreaming about her for months. Apparently, his family was cursed and the first born of each generation takes on the curse that makes them see visions of the future until eventually they go insane.

The craziness continues on from there. Turns out Mateo’s best friend Elizabeth isn’t who she says she is. She’s actually a witch too, but a really old evil witch. She was the original witch that cursed Mateo’s family, and when he finds that out he wants revenge. Because of her curse, his mother committed suicide. But Nadia warns him off, because Elizabeth is involved in everything that’s going wrong with the town. So Mateo, their friend Verlaine – who’s parents may or may not have been killed by Elizabeth too – and Nadia plan to stop Elizabeth. The question is how do you go against an all-powerful witch, when Nadia hasn’t even completed her training?

Easy. You don’t. When Nadia and Elizabeth finally go against each other, Nadia doesn’t attack Elizabeth, instead as Elizabeth is ripping away all her spells that are holding the town together, Nadia fills the gaps with her power. When the dust finally settles, Elizabeth is nowhere to be seen. Turns out, everything was planned. Elizabeth knew that Nadia would somehow try to stop her from ripping the spells out of the town, so she had an associate go over to the high school and open the first spell that was containing The One Beneath.

Confused yet? Yeah, me too. This book was great except for the ending, which left so many more questions than it did answers. Also, can we talk about that Elizabeth’s Book of Shadows that Nadia stumbles upon scene? Spiders, again? Seriously? Can books with spider scenes come with a warning or something? I had nightmares all weekend because of that scene.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Like I said the book was great; great characters and development, action was intense, but the ending was just a confusion spell.

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