Customer Reviews

Spellbent

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Most of the time I find good, objective reasons for liking or not liking a book. SPELLBENT didn't oblige me. Objectively there's nothing wrong with style, characters and setting. This might be Lucy A. Snyder's first major novel, but she's been a short story writer for a long time and she knows what she's doing.
My problem lies with the heroine of the book. I just don't get her. And I don't like her much either.
Jessie lives in an unhealthy relationship with her former teacher Cooper. He facilitates her emotional and material dependency, isolates her and hinders her development. Law is a flexible thing to them and the bottom of society is where they want to be. I don't know if Cooper does these things deliberately to Jessie or not. However, if you try to come up with something positive to say about a character and the only thing coming to mind is "At least he doesn't beat her", it doesn't bode well. The worst thing about this situation is, that Jessie begins to see those things, but doesn't deem them important enough and lets them drop.

When Cooper accidentally opens a door to a hell, gets pulled in and a demon escapes, Jessie is the only one who can save her boyfriend. Authorities don't want her to go after him and when she refuses to cooperate declare her anathema. No one in the magical community is allowed to help Jessie, but her newly awakened familiar Palimpsest proves to be quite the wicked one.

I understand why Jessie wants to save her boyfriend. I can't see how a nearly dead person with no resources, no help, no plan thinks she can do the impossible, though. See, while fighting the demon Jesse got hurt. Badly. She lost an arm (it's a green pus oozing mess), an eye (filled by a ping-pong ball), got poisoned and suffered other severe injuries. She's with one foot in death's door and hurting horrendously, but could be completely healed if she agrees to leave her boyfriend be. Pain of this magnitude can't be ignored or pushed away by sheer contrariness. Pain is a big motivator. It motivates you to make it go away! So I don't understand why Jessie doesn't try to find a way around the agreement after she's healed. Especially since she doesn't know what to do anyway!
Her familiar saves her. He knows the right spells and potions for the right situations and agrees to help her even though he could get into big trouble himself. Lucky Jessie.

Aside from my problems with the characters I thought that the ick factor of this story was pretty high. Ferret droppings and bloody maxi pads fuel spells, there are beings made of sperm and menstrual period, the heroine tries to scoop out her faux eye with a spoon and has green pus oozing out of her arm stump, etc., etc. .

SPELLBENT is well written, but not to my tastes. If Lucy A. Snyder starts a new series, I might give it a try, though.

Jessica Shimmer is my kind of hero! If you're a fan of urban fantasy, you're going to love Spellbent. It's got magic, sex, a butt-kicking hero, and a plot that made me read the whole thing in one breathless, page-flipping sitting. If you're sick of the same old, same old in the genre, you're going to love it even more. Jessie solves problems using her brawn, both magical and physical, not her feminine allure. She's snarky, witty, and far from perfect. I love her!

And I love the magical world Snyder has built. It's authentic, dimensional, convincing, and full of surprises. (Wait until you find out what Jessie does to Mikey!) From the very first pages, you believe in this universe. World building is the hardest part of the fantasy writer's job, and Lucy A. Snyder does the work with a master's touch. Jessie Shimmer is so real and likeable I wanted to call her up and ask her to meet me for coffee. The other characters, from Jessie's familiar ferret, Pal, to the other magic workers live and breathe right there on the page.

Spellbent is a hoot, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It made me laugh, and I really cared what happened to the characters. Snyder has a keen touch for dialogue and for bringing a distinct voice to each of her people. And ferrets. It's hard to believe this is a first novel. But anyone familiar with Snyder's work knows her gifts as a wordsmith, so it's not completely surprising.

I can't wait to read the rest of the books in the series and find out what happens to Jessie, Cooper, and the other folks. Snyder did an excellent job of bring closure to this first novel, and in setting up the situation for the sequels.

Buy this book, go someplace where nobody will interrupt you, and prepare to get down. Don't start it right before you're supposed to go to sleep, because you'll be up until you finish it. Who knew Columbus, Ohio, could be so much fun? Five stars, all the way.

It's just a routine rain spell. Jessie and her teacher and lover, Cooper, head to the city park to call up a storm and make a few bucks. But something goes horribly wrong. By the end of the night, Cooper has been sucked away into a Hell realm, and Jessie has suffered devastating injuries.

Then, things get *worse*. Benedict Jordan, the leader of the city's magicians, gives Jessie a choice: either she agrees not to rescue Cooper, or else she becomes anathema. Jessie is definitely not the kind of girl who'll leave her boyfriend to rot in Hell, so she chooses anathema. Jordan proceeds to ruin her life and leave her with nothing. Nothing, that is, except her never-give-up attitude and Palimpsest, an uptight ferret familiar who is described as having the voice of a Canadian librarian. (Not knowing any Canadian librarians, my brain has substituted an unholy cross between Rupert Giles' voice and C-3PO's.) Pal provides much of the comic relief in Spellbent.

Together, Jessie and Pal do everything within their power, first to survive, then to save Cooper. Jessie's tenacity and resourcefulness make every step of her journey compelling. Jessie could be forgiven for wallowing in angst, given what happens to her, but she doesn't. She never stops moving toward her goals. I read Spellbent in a single afternoon and evening, unable to tear myself away. I had to know what happened next!

It's a good book even before we get to Hell, and then it's the Hell scenes that really blew me away. I was expecting the usual flames and pitchforks, but Snyder doesn't go that conventional route. Cooper's Hell is an intensely personal one. And wow, is it dark. I think my jaw was on the floor when Jessie (and I) learned about the horrific events that lay at the root of the entire plot.

Spellbent is dark enough that it won't be for everyone; a previous reviewer compared the gore level to that of Ilona Andrews' first Kate Daniels book, Magic Bites, and that's a pretty accurate parallel. This comes in part from the horror elements and in part from the magic system that Jessie and Cooper use: ubiquemancy, the art of finding the magic in everything. This sometimes means unsavory ingredients, like bodily fluids. It can get a little gross. But at the same time, it adds a verisimilitude that I can't help but respect. Ancient and medieval "spell recipes" often called for ingredients that would make most of us squeamish.

A minor aside: There's an odd little editing glitch in my e-ARC (it may be corrected in the published book). Jessie remarks that she's "not afraid of some third-string football-player rapist," which had me rereading earlier pages to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I hadn't; we meet the football-playing rapist in the next scene. It has no bearing on the plot, so all it did was make me scratch my head for a few minutes.

Jaded urban fantasy fans should consider giving Spellbent a try. Snyder adds together a determined yet flawed heroine, fun secondary characters, a plot with tons of forward momentum, and one seriously creepy Hell, and the end result is a visceral, powerful modern-day Orpheus myth.

Jessie Shimmer lives with a man who excels in magic and uses that supernatural talent to bring in the rent money. Cooper Marron helps Jessie tap into her very unskilled powers as both her mentor and lover. She also has a spirit guide, a familiar ferret named Palimpsest or Pal as she nicknames him, who doesn't talk to her just yet. Cooper has been having some bad nightmares and she's concerned. He doesn't think it's a big deal and has them working on their next score that will net them easy money.

Cooper, along with Jessie as his aid, will bring forth a rainstorm to break a drought that's causing major problems for the farming community outside of Columbus. As Cooper goes through his typical ritual, something goes very wrong and he ends up opening a portal to Hell. Cooper is pulled in, leaving Jessie alone to fight a demon that has come out of the portal. Suddenly, Jessie's dead aunt calls her on her cell phone, and Pal starts talking to Jessie. It's up to Jessie to subdue the demon formerly known as Smoky, Cooper's familiar fox terrier and stop it from causing destruction in the downtown area. But, Jessie is still a novice and barely stops the demon and ends up almost dying and losing an eye and part of her left arm.

Even though it seems things couldn't get worse for Jessie, they do. The leader of the governing circle of the seven powerful witches and wizards, Benedict Jordan, places a magical gag order on Jessie to stop her from rescuing Cooper. Jessie has to sign a magical binding contract or she will become an outcast leaving no one who can help her. She knows something is off with Jordan, and along with Pal, a ping-pong ball she uses for an eye and the help of Cooper's brother, Warlock, she'll channel more magic and power so she'll be able to walk through the fires of hell to get her man back and find the answers she needs. With enough willpower, she hopes to get her old life back, and hopefully grow back a new eye and arm so she doesn't look like a freak.

Spellbent should have been another action packed urban fantasy combined with a bit of humor and on the edge of your seat action. Unfortunately, this debut by Lucy A. Snyder was an utter train wreck of unbelievably bad dialogue and badly edited scenes. Half the time I couldn't figure out what was going on. Also, Pal the ferret, who's a combination of reason and condescension, brings nothing mentionable to the plot or with helping Jessie. Pal's voice is described as a Canadian Librarian, which for the life of me, I'm still trying to figure out what that sounds like and why would we care?

The story is cluttered with descriptions that are so amazingly over the top and not in a good way. I thought it was bad enough when Jessie goes rooting through the garbage can for a used maxi pad for a magic spell, but I was mistaken because it gets worse. When Warlock and his girlfriend, Opal end up making some special creatures due to the combination of Opal's menstrual period and Warlock's sperm that was mixed together in a toilet that was it for me. Among other scenes like this, I couldn't figure out if Snyder was going for a more dark comical fantasy tale, where she tried to succeed in writing something differently that stands out from the normal urban fantasy series being published. If so, she hasn't accomplished that in any way.

Jessie is annoying and very immature. There is really nothing to recommend her. The villain Jordan makes a very forgettable appearance. Warlock had his moments, but he was written as such a sad sack and as close to a drugged out hippie character as you can get.

The overall plot of Spellbent is in a word- dull. The motions Jessie goes through to find Cooper don't deliver in any way and has a major lack of focus and the push needed to keep the reader interested. The writing is very much surface writing, as in there is no meat or depth, and by the time I finished reading, I couldn't remember half of what happened.

Spellbent is a very weak book that strives to be something more and fails in every way.

Katiebabs

I read a lot of urban fantasy. SPELLBENT was the single best novel in that genre I've read in 2010. It had a likable lead, strong plot, and witty writing, but most of all, its details were clever. Whether it was shopping for spell ingredients in Wal-Mart, the many uses Jessie gets out of her shrinking spell, or the mortifying fate accidentally inflicted on one of her room mates, the author kept me interested in seeing what would happen next.

I also enjoyed having a sorceress protagonist who often had to go to some effort to make a magic potion or cast a major spell, and having her work at her magic added verisimilitude. The deep background regarding the nonhuman powers (Virtus) behind the world and the nature and characterization of animal familiars as alien beings was also rather original (I've only seen something like that once before, in the anime SHAMANIC PRINCESS). Good stuff!

Really, the whole thing was a joy to read, as new ideas popped off every few pages. The supporting cast was also well visualized. Finally, Jessie herself was a likable, intelligent character, and I was pleased to find that a sequel, Shotgun Sorceress, is in the works, which I will undoubtedly purchase.

A final point: I appreciated that Lucy Snyder chose to practice the oft-ignored art of having actual chapter titles.

I requested this book from the author.


Jessie Shimmer is an apprentice wizard who wants nothing more than to spend a pleasant afternoon with her lover and Master, Cooper. Instead their spell to summon rain goes wrong and Cooper vanishes, leaving Jessie alone in a park suddenly torn apart by magic. Despite being sealed off and left to die by the other magic users of the city, Jessie defeats the demon that came through the tear that took Cooper, taking severe damage herself.
When she wakes in the home of Mother Karen, her friend and a healer things only get worse, for the magical ruler of the city wants Jessie silenced and Cooper to remain gone, permanently. With Mr. Jordan trying to crush her will and her desire to see Cooper back safely in her arms Jessie must risk losing it all, suffer the guilt of her past that she didn't even know about and try to save Cooper from his.
Spellbent is a fast paced, hard to put down novel. Somewhere between Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden and Terry Pratchett's magical sections of Discworld, Snyder takes readers on a ride through strange creatures, powerful magic, true evil and personalized hell dimensions.
Accompanied by her familiar, a sometimes ferret, sometimes something else altogether, and motivated by family and love Jessie is a lead that gets things done. Many urban fantasy novels have begun to display themes of friendship or defying the odds. Snyder gives her characters a familiar dark past, save that the focus is far more on their modern life and current survival than on a constantly circling cycle of dealing with the trauma of their pasts.
A strong, enticing debut for Snyder in urban fantasy, this one is definitely on my list of must reads for the year.

What inspires cooperation among warring angels and demons? Rogues.

Jessie Shimmer didn't know the job would turn bad, but boy, did it ever. Basic job, contracted to some farmers in southern Ohio to raise some rain. Turns out someone else had been raising Cain, and now her boyfriend Marron Cooper has been sucked away to an alternate dimension. The magical authorities in town blame Jessie and name her Outcast for trying to save her man. But 'angelic' Virtii, pencil-pushing magical lawyers, and even Hell-acious secrets from Cooper's past can't keep Jessie from getting Cooper back. Let them try... 'cause Jessie's got a few tricks up her sleeve they've never seen yet.

Lucy's new book about a magical Columbus is diverting, wickedly funny, and un-apologetically original. I loved Jessie and Cooper! Jessie has both grit and wit, and her interactions with her ferret familiar Palimpset are comic joy to read. I found the setting fun, the magical politics devious, the secondary characters artful and well developed, and the pacing great. I'd definitely recommend this read to science fiction/fantasy and paranormal romance fans alike. Just... watch out for the homonuclei. Trust me.

In Ohio, Jessie Shimmer is the acolyte of Cooper Marron, who is teaching her how to tap her supernatural powers. While calling down a rainstorm to break a drought, Cooper ends up opening an intradimensional portal and is pulled within. Jessie is left alone, fighting for her life against a horrid demon.

The governing circle consists of seven powerful witches and wizards who act as the local government for those with magic in Columbus and a few counties beyond. The leader is named Benedict Jordan. Instead of helping Jessie and Cooper, they cast an isolation sphere on the area, trapping all within. In other words, they expect Jessie, Cooper, and every other innocent soul within the entire downtown area to die.

In the aftermath, Jessie and her familiar, a ferret named Palimpsest "Pal", struggle to find a way to rescue Cooper. However, Jordan and his allies are intent on forcing Jessie to sign a binding contract to forget about rescuing Cooper. In exchange, Jessie would not be charged for what happened and her horrible injuries would be treated. (Jessie lost an eye and the lower part of an arm while fighting the demon.) Until Jessie signs, she will not be healed, her band account is gone, she is evicted from her home, and she suddenly has a criminal record that causes her to lose her job. To make matters worse, Jessie has a spell cast upon her so that anyone who offers her help would be instantly killed and allows Jordan to track Jessie where ever she goes. But Jessie's unknown and untapped powers are growing and Jessie and Pal are obstinate about rescuing Cooper.


***** FIVE STARS! It is hard for me to believe that this is Lucy Snyder's debut novel. I found myself unable to stop reading as Jessie went from being a small acolyte to a fierce kick-butt sorceress-warrior. If you do not read this gem, then you are missing one of the best books of the year! Totally striking! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Spellbent is a new urban fantasy and debut novel from Snyder. Yay! Just what we need...more urban fantasy about modern wizards...but wait...something happened on my way to figuring I'd rip the book out of spite...it turned out to be quite good. Go figure! Snyder crafts a tale that while perhaps not being entirely original, is fun, exciting, and mixed with humor. We have aspiring wizard Jessie Shimmer who is being trained by her lover, Cooper. When a botched spell goes very awry, Cooper is sucked away by a mystical portal to another dimension leaving Jessie to fight off a powerful demon. Jessie will get no help from governing circle of magicians who in fact brand her an outcast and would prefer that Cooper stay gone. Jessie will have to rely on her wits, fists, and burgeoning skills to rescue her lover.

Spellbent doesn't go overboard with the love and sex angle...this is a magic/action novel first. Jessie is a strong female protagonist and remarkably resilient. Snyder certainly doesn't play her as a helpless female! She's also extremely likable, boding well for the success of a series. Yes there's obviously a bit of Jim Butcher/Harry Dresden influence, but you could choose worse series to try and emulate. The bookstore shelves are crowded with books in this genre but this is one that demands to be read.

While Spellbent is being marketed as an urban fantasy/romance novel, Lucy Snyder takes great joy in developing her world where magic is literally in everything around you (if you know how to use it), and tweaking the usual tropes from most 'supernatural romance' novels on the nose. How else do you explain a romance novel where the heroine's lover spends 90% of the book off screen?

Lucy's background in horror writing comes through in quite a few of the more visceral scenes and plot points, and I wouldn't suggest the book to anyone who considers themselves to have a weak stomach or delicate sensibilities, but for anyone willing to brave the challenge and walk in with their eyes open, this is one hell of a ride , starting with Jessie, Lucy's snarky but remarkably resilient protagonist, in some deep trouble, and only gathering speed from there!