Review of ‘Spellbound’ by Jackie D. & Jean Copeland
I hate to say this but this was only an average lesbian paranormal read for me. Paranormal is my favorite category and I love witches, so I had some really high hopes for this. I didn’t dislike this, it was only just alright. I do want to make clear that I seem to be an outlier here. I sometimes wonder if it is because this is my number one genre of book to read that I’m too picky or maybe I’m a paranormal snob, I don’t know. I also hate to write a low-rating review for paranormal books because I want them to do well so authors keep writing them. But I have to be honest and I can’t pretend that this book really grabbed me when it didn’t.
One of the strikes the book had right off the bat was so many main characters and point of view shifts. As someone who loves first person, I’m not big on books with many POV’s. This book had what I would consider 5 main characters with I think three revolving POV’s, plus who I would consider the “bad guys” and their POV. I had trouble keeping them apart so I think I was only in one “bad guy” POV but it might have been more. And I get that since this book was written by two authors that it made sense they would each write at least 2 POV’s and 4 or 5 characters each, I just felt I could not connect with anyone.
I think when you have so many main and strong secondary characters, that it helps to have a book on the longer side. ‘The Priory of the Orange Tree‘ had 3 or 4 main POV’s, but that book is a tome. There was plenty of time to know and connect with the mains. ‘Spellbound’ is of average length for a lesfic book and I felt like I didn’t have enough time with each individual character. The one character I found most interesting was written in a way where she was unlikeable and actually annoying at times so I was a little disappointed with that too.
This book does have a romance and actually two couples are falling for each other. I thought the romances were fine and sweet. Romances are always harder for me when I don’t really connect with the characters so I didn’t enjoy them as much as I hoped but they were decent. I did think one was better done than the other though. One romance felt very fast-moving where the other characters had feelings for each other for a while so that one appealed to me more.
When it came to the paranormal aspects I was a little disappointed. There was a lot of things that just were, without much explanation because they were paranormal in nature. For instance, a character has a problem she’s spent her whole life dealing with… then all of a sudden and out of the blue there is a paranormal fix for her problem. I don’t like it when there is a random magic item or power that will fix everything. Just like the newly awakened witches who had an incredible grasp on their newly found powers after a 5-minute learning and practice session. Not even mentioning how one character randomly became super powerful because it was convenient for her, but again how and why? I don’t know.
I’m still trying to figure out what the realms with an “s” are that the characters had to save. I apologized to the authors if that was explained but I never saw an explanation about how many realms or what they even were. But let’s be honest here, not everyone is going to be bothered by these issues like I was. I know this is the paranormal fan in me wanting more world-building and information that I can understand what makes this paranormal world go round. If you are just looking for pure entertainment and can go with the flow, none of these issues might pop up for you. But, as a self-proclaimed paranormal connoisseur, I can’t read a paranormal book without noticing these kinds of issues.
If you enjoy witches, books with multiple main characters, and good vs evil, this book may be for you. Unfortunately, I didn’t love this as I wanted too, but even with all my issues, I would still give this an average score since the storyline was entertaining. Since I’m an outlier on giving this book only an average rating, I would suggest reading other reviews since you might enjoy this story a lot more than I did. 3 Stars.
A copy was given to me for an honest review.
One Response
If nothing else, a low review with explanation from a fan of paranormal let’s a paranormal novice know that if she does not like the book, it may be that one book, not the entire genre. Since it’s not the most popular genre, that is good to know.
I don’t think I’ve ever read Jackie D.’s work, but I am a fan of Jean Copeland. So I may or may not try this, but this review will definitely not throw me off their work.