Spellcaster by
Jaymin Eve
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
If you're a
Harry Potter fan looking for magic-classes-at-boarding-school vibes with a healthy dose of spicy scenes, this is 100% for you.
Our main girl, Paisley, is off to her first year at magic school. Things are a little different in this world - she's 22, and that's the year your magic starts to bloom, so that's why its her first year. Don't ask me what she's been doing up til now.
The bonus of being 22 means she can talk about having sex with people often and we don't have to worry about her being too young. Which is lucky because Paisley and her friends are the horniest group of people I've ever met in a book. EVERYTHING is about getting laid for these people. Half the spice of this book is sexy dreams. These girls need a cold shower STAT.
Then monsters start turning up, seemingly targeting Paisley, and her best defence against them is the brooding Spellcaster, Logan, who is the Sexiest Man Alive but also likely the one trying to kill her.
So yeah this is another adult fantasy that's basically written like YA only full of adult themes (sex).
I knew instantly reading this one that I was reading the words of an Aussie - no one swears as much, and uses phrases like 'no worries' (do they?!). It was actually kind of comforting, to be honest. But the book is set in somewhere America (with little explanation) so it can be a bit jarring at times.
There's a lot of little mysteries here - Paisley and Logan have a past, which he remembers but she doesn't. I spent the entire book waiting for this to be cleared up, but was disappointed. There's also some stuff related to her mother, and her grandmother, that leaves more questions than answers.
It kinda felt like the book was so busy building a enemies-to-lovers romance that it ran out of time for all the cool mysterious stuff. It follows the main thread of the monsters okay, but even that is mostly a cycle of: Paisley gets attacked -> friends and family insist she never be alone -> she goes somewhere alone to 'research' or whatever -> is attacked. So it gets a little dull in its repetitive nature. Also just incredibly frustrating the amount of times she agrees she shouldn't go anywhere alone and then immediately goes somewhere alone. GIRL.
The magic wasn't really developed much beyond 'elementals have power over elements'. There are also necromancers, who dabble in death, and then of course the super rare Spellcasters, who have unlimited power over everything in the universe essentially. Like, these guys are your character at the end of an RPG when you've maxed all your skills. Their only weakness is necromancy, but that doesn't seem to be a big deal because necromancy barely rates a mention in this book. These Spellcasters are super overpowered, so naturally, the only one we know is Logan. Who is obsessed with Paisley. Who has no evident affinity for anything yet, but weird things happen with her magic so get ready for her to dominate in later books.
I think the most frustrating part of this was just the lack of world building. There isn't really enough explanation to set up the scene or even touch on the world around it. We're thrown into the school pretty quickly, but even the school doesn't have a lot of character beyond stereotypes. It feels very
Harry Potter because knowing HP helps fill in some of the gaps this book leaves. The magic systems feel a little lazy, but there are also spells and incantations used and why they use both isn't really explained at all. There are mentions of attending classes but no rhyme or reason to them, and not enough detail to understand any kind of schedule. I found it all too confusing if I tried to think about it all at once, rather than just the snippets that were happening as the story progressed. So you really can't think too deeply about this one because I think it will lead to a lot of questions and probably plot holes.
My favourite part of this was the family angle - Paisley comes from a big family, and is the youngest of the siblings to be attending the college. But her siblings are still there, and they're constantly hanging out, getting in each other's faces and are super protective of each other. I loved it. It was refreshing to not be dealing with an orphan, and because it was the most unique thing about the story, it really helped to make this book its own. Family is important, and it was nice for this book to recognise that.
The spice is there for romantasy fans looking for kicks - and it gets quite explicit. Naturally I cringed and skimmed my way through those bits but if the spicy stuff is your vibe you should enjoy this one immensely. It doesn't shy away or hide thoughts of sex with shame. This book embraces sexuality, and while it's not for me I respect the way it was handled.
I think this is going to be a winner with a lot of people, but there's a lot of potential stored up for the sequel. It's a typical enemies-t0-lovers, angsty kind of story, but the surrounding characters make things a little more interesting, and there are plenty of secrets that will keep you hanging for more.
With thanks to Harper Collins for an ARC
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