Spells Trouble (ARC Book Review)

P. C. Cast and Kristen Cast are back at it again with Spells Trouble, the first in a witchy YA series perfect for fans of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. 

Spells Trouble follows twin witches, Hunter and Mercy, who live in Goodeville, Illinois at the apex of five ley lines of magic that keep gateways to the underworld at bay. But when something goes wrong in their yearly ritual, they realize the gates may open for the first time in centuries, letting nightmarish creatures into their world that will threaten the lives of those they love most.

A popular author duo during the vampire craze of my middle school days, seeing the two Casts reunite on a new project stoked a nostalgia so strong I couldn’t help but request an early copy. But almost ten years after our initial meeting, the authors haven’t changed much…and not in a good way. 

The popular teen drama spiked with paranormal fantasy, a little bit of sex, and a lot of cringey trying-too-hard-to-to-appeal-to-teens dialogue might have been right up my alley when I was 13, but now I just can’t help thinking it needs some modernization. 

For a story about magic, the fantastical elements of the novel took a backseat to the relationships of the often cliché characters, and the magic system was left mostly unrefined. How much power exactly do the witches have? How do they use it? Does the world know about them? All these questions are left open and viable to change to suit the moment and plotline at hand.

Not to mention that nearly every sentence was burdened with an overload of adverbs and adjectives, as if the authors were afraid to place a noun without them and making up what must have been at least half the word count. Meanwhile, the actual action and spell work of the story were a too-small fraction of the overall narrative, even for the first novel in a series, and the structure made any potential twists and surprises obvious long before the characters were allowed to figure them out, sapping out the tension and dousing them in naivete. 

All I can say for this story is that it had an idea and ran away in the wrong direction with it. Palatable only for teens who like pulp, I rated Spells Trouble 2 out of 5.

Thank you to Netgalley Wednesday Books for the early copy in exchange for an honest review!

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