let's review the situation....

Two things today. First, a book review.


Wicked 2: Spellbound
by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie

Where we left off in Legacy, Holly was possessed, the house was burning down, Jer was trapped in the Australian Dreamtime, and Nicole was again kidnapped by James and Eli. In Spellbound, things get even more complicated than that. The first half of the book goes as normal. The Cahors witches find a long lost cousin, Alex Currethurs. Alex is a great asset, but there's something a little off again. Suddenly, things change. History is being rewritten, and Nicole is pregnant.

As soon as history begins to change, things get confusing. Holder and Viguie jump back and forth between the present and different periods in the past. Even if this is frustrating for the reader, the authors cleverly write the epilogue so that you know everything will be explained in the next book, and there is something very, very wrong with Alex.

The authors are experts at suspense, and at long last Nicole and Amanda's characters have an added depth to them. Once again, they seem undecided as to whether people are to die, or live, and now an added complication is, if they are to live, which century are they to live in? Spellbound is a book that should be read slowly and thoroughly; it is very easy to miss important details.

. . .

Chapter Six is finished. It was full of twists and turns for me as a writer, things I wasn't expecting, but made too much sense to disregard.

Jylouna gets the three cleaned up and they hit the libraries in Central City. They learn that Jacob is a Dark One, a black mage. While this doesn't mean he's evil, everyone is feeling a little wary. They also learn that the Travelling Bard, infamous performer, is a puppet for the essence of Greed. Before they can do any more research, Matheus is arrested for helping Kesstrel escape (chapter two). Jyla tricks the guards at the prison into thinking she's going to interrogate Liselle and Matheus in order to help Matheus escape. Things go terribly wrong, and they trio are interrupted just in time to learn that the unnaturally high levels of magic in the prison is making the plantlife under it spring unnaturally to life. They race against the clock to get out of the prison before the plantlife makes it capsize. Liselle is stabbed and dies in the escape. Matheus and Jyla escape with Matheus' cellmate, Sean, a young but experienced Green Mage, an begin to make their way to the rendez-vous point.

As a writer, I had no idea that Liselle was going to die until I wrote it. I had no idea why foliage suddenly took over the prison until Sean explained it after they escaped. It was refreshing to have no control over a chapter... as though the characters wrote it themselves. I wasn't expecting that, especially not from that group, since Kesstrel and Jessica are among my strongest characters.

Final count? 11 pages single-spaced, 8749 words. Longest chapter yet. And I had a difficult time ending it, too.

{ listening to: "Let's Dance" - Benny Goodman || mood: hungry }