Sweep: Book of Shadows
(The Sweep series, Book 1)
Cate Tiernan
Puffin
Fiction, YA Fantasy
****
DESCRIPTION: Morgan is a misfit in her junior year of high school. She's lived in the small New England town of Widow's Vale all her life, but her friends are drifting
into different cliques, leaving her lonely and alone. Even her younger sister Mary K. has more of a social life than she does. Then, he arrives. His name is Cal, and he
immediately steals Morgan's heart... and the hearts of half the girls in her school. It's not only his looks, though he certainly has those in spades. There's just something
special about him... something wild, something magical
Cal soon reveals himself as a practicing witch. He's about to shake up Widow's Vale, a small Catholic community, with his ancient and powerful religion. Morgan finds herself
drawn deeper and deeper into a world she never knew existed, but which seems to be calling her nonetheless.
REVIEW: Early on, I was fairly sure that this was going to become a teen make-out book with Wicca as a backdrop. I was more or less proven wrong. Morgan's social, family, and personal struggles are well written, and nothing comes as easy as it might in other books. Still, I the fairly abrupt ending left me disenchanted. I knew this was the first in a series, but I was expecting more of a mytharc to be established before the conclusion. Instead, it's mostly about Morgan struggling to reconcile her growing interest in Wicca (and Cal) with her conservative upbringing and her own disapproving parents. At times, witchcraft was played more as an excuse for teenage rebellion than a religion, try as the book might to counter the view. Some of Cal's recruitment tactics, by which he forms his new coven, also rubbed me the wrong way - deceptive, almost smacking of a con artist or cult leader. Overall, though, this was fairly good, certainly better than I expected. I might read more in the series, but frankly the teen crushes and love triangles got a bit old to me. I also found it hard to believe that a modern teenager - even a Catholic teen from a small town - wouldn't recognize a pentagram when she sees one.
You might also enjoy:
The Learned Art of Witches & Wizards (Anton and Mina Adams, Nonfiction - The history and practice of magick)
Running with the Demon (Terry Brooks, Fiction - A girl works to fight an unseen evil that feeds on her town's desperation)
Dragon's Keep (Janet Lee Carey, YA Fiction - A princess in a superstition-riddled land is born with a dragon's claw for a finger)
Things Not Seen (Andrew Clements, YA Fiction - A boy wakes up one morning to discover he's invisible)
Bruce Coville's Chamber of Horrors series (Bruce Coville, YA Fiction - Teens play with powers beyond their understanding)
King's Dragon (Kate Elliot, Fiction - In a fantasy world on the brink of disaster, one girl's rare magical knowledge makes her a target of dark forces)
The Rhapsody trilogy (Elizabeth Haydon, Fiction - A woman with a magical gift finds her life bound to two assassins in a journey beyond her wildest dreams and nightmares)
Bedlam's Bard (Mercedes Lackey with Ellen Guon, Fiction - Elves and magic hide in plain sight in California)
The Fire Rose (Mercedes Lackey, Fiction - A turn-of-the-century woman with a college education takes a job with a reclusive rail baron, who was disfigured while practicing magic)
The Serpent's Shadow (Mercedes Lackey, Fiction - An untrained but magically gifted woman moves from India to London to flee dark mages)
Witch & Wizard (James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet, YA Fiction - Two teens in a modern dictatorship are imprisoned for powers they don't know they have)
The Circle of Magic quartet (Tamora Pierce, YA Fiction - Four children must learn to trust and use their elusive magical gifts)
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