Book Review: Spellbound, by Cara Lynn Shultz

Spellbound is an entertaining combination of romance, high school drama, and witchcraft.

Emma has had a rough life—her father left when she was young, and both her mom and brother are dead. Her stepfather was abusive, and eventually caused an accident while driving drunk that severely injured Emma. So Emma has come to New York to live with her aunt Christine. Her cousin, Ashley, who is two years younger than Emma, is excited to show Emma the ropes at their exclusive private school, where Emma will be a junior.

Emma finds a few friends, but lots of unfriendly, pretentious teens at Vincent Academy. She is uncontrollably drawn to one hot boy, though. Brendan Salinger. She has never felt this towards another boy, and doesn’t understand what it means. It seems at times that Brendan is interested in her, but other times he’s very cold, and Emma is baffled by his behavior. 

Emma’s brother had given her a unique pendant that she always wears around her neck. It’s some sort of crest that he picked up at a garage sale. Emma finds a picture of the exact same pendant in Brendan’s locker, and begins some investigating of what exactly this pendant means.

She discovers an old legend about her pendant, with the help of her friend Angelique who claims she is a witch. Along with determining how this legend affects Emma, she gets embroiled in a battle with Antony, a typical high-school bully, who has spread vicious rumors about Ashley.

Shultz adds many more details, but I don’t want to give too much away. The story is a realistic portrayal of how difficult high school life can be with different factions and the motivations of hormonal teens. At times, their behavior may go a bit over the top, but I still enjoyed the suspense and action. Then there’s the magical, fairy tale aspect, which adds just enough intrigue to keep the story exciting and still believable. The romance is simply melty – I know that’s not a word, but it made me want to be a teen falling in love all over again. I really enjoyed how Shultz described the buildup of this attraction. There’s no sex, just some hot, steamy kissing, and I found that refreshing. 

There were some formatting issues with the ebook I read. Usually when there’s a change of time or place, there’s a least an extra space between paragraphs. The book didn’t have it, so sometimes these changes were a bit jarring. There were no chapters; no breaks anywhere in the text. I’m hopeful this will be fixed in the final copy.

There’s also a bit of a continuation after the end of the story, told from Angelique’s viewpoint, which was interesting, but left me confused. I’m not sure if this was a setup for a sequel or just an added bit of a tale. Anyone?

I will recommend this to girls who like their romance with a little bit of magic.  There’s hot boys, nasty girls, and some tense, life threatening scenes to add to the mix. I think this one will be an easy sell.

Published by Harlequin Teen, June 21, 2011

eARC received for review from NetGalley and the publisher

352 pages (qualifies for my 350 Page Book Challenge!)

Rating: 3.5/5

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