Spellbinder: A Love Story With Magical Interruptions [Hardcover]

Melanie Rawn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2006

There is magic in the big city…literally. New York City has a small, and by preference discrete, population of witches and wizards who live and love and go dancing just like everyone else. Holly McClure is one of them, a successful writer who tries to ignore her heritage, except when the local Magistrate needs her special gift in his coven. Holly is far more interested in Evan Lachlan, the handsome federal marshal who works with her best friend, assistant district attorney Susannah Wingfield.

But trouble is coming to the City in the form of a black coven run by a murderous psychopath, and deputy marshals and ADAs are powerless to deal with that kind of crime. The danger to Holly is extreme, for her special gift is the power of her blood to strengthen and bind any spell, for good or for evil. Holly's passionate love affair will be derailed by those who want to drain her for their own purposes. In the end it will be magic against magic, and Holly McClure will have to risk all for life and love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a departure from her fire-breathing fantasy Dragon Prince and Dragon Star trilogies, Rawn conjures the sex lives and turf wars of modern Manhattan witches in this entertaining if overstuffed novel. Sexy, macho U.S. Marshal Evan Lachlan adores novelist and witch Holly McClure for her beauty and charm; Holly's coven values her for her blood, which has the unique ability to make spells stick. While Holly and Evan's romance heats up, Holly's Circle, presided over by powerful Judge Elias Sutton Bradshaw, struggles to defuse a sociopath Satanist, Noel. Witch and mundane worlds collide after Noel kills a famous evangelist's son during a kinky black magic ritual starring renegade novelist and witch, Denise Josèphe. This cauldron bubbles over with spells, rituals, sex and even a vampire or two. (Oct.)
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Review

"Impressive….Melanie Rawn is good!" --Anne McCaffrey

"I am mad (petulant, in fact!) that I can't immediately read book number two in the Exiles trilogy.... Melanie Rawn has established beyond doubt that she is a great writer of fantasy and The Ruins of Ambrai will join the Dragon series in my library of favorites for years to come." --Realms of Fantasy on The Ruins of Ambrai

"Rawn's talent for lush descriptions and complex characterizations provides a broad range of drama, intrigue, romance, and adventure. Her depiction of Lenfell's unique matriarchal society adds further texture to this densely woven fantasy tapestry." --Library Journal on The Ruins of Ambrai


"Be warned-if you buy one, you will want to buy them all." -- Kliatt on The Star Scroll

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (October 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765315327
• ISBN-13: 978-0765315328
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,737,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars What happened?, April 13, 2007

By 

J. L. Callahan "Meijhen" (Little Elm, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spellbinder: A Love Story With Magical Interruptions (Hardcover)

The only reason I gave this 2 stars was because the writing flowed well enough, and was enjoyabled enough to keep me going to the end. The subtitle of this work is "A love story with magical interruptions," and that is exactly what it is -- a romance novel with some paranormal trappings. If you are looking for another novel along the lines of the Dragon books, or Ruins of Ambrai, this is not that novel.
I had real problems with this book. First, all of Rawn's books have an element of romance in them, the "One True Love" concept (Rohan & Sioned, Pol & Sionell, Tobin & Chay, Sara & Collan, Gorynel & Cai, etc). I have no problem with this in a fantasy setting; it only bothers me when the setting is the "Real World," because it just doesn't work that way.
Also, the Magic in the book was really confusing me. At first it seemed that a person's magic (something they were born with) and their religion or faith were separate things (hence being a Catholic Witch). But at other points in the book it became clear that if you were born a Witch than you became a Wiccan. The description of Holly's family is a prime example of that. Despite everyone else in the family being at least nominally Christian, if you were born with the talent, then you were Wiccan. Why? Doesn't jibe with things spouted by the characters at various other places in the book.
Holly's character was inconsistent. She was apparently supposed to be this big, strong woman, who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to go it alone, etc etc, prime example of feminist womanhood, blah blah blah. Except she dissolved into tears and insecurity at a moment's notice, particularly regarding men, she constantly whinged on and on about WHAT she was, and despite that educated intelligence she was supposed to have, that was so good at understanding other people, she hadn't the faintest clue what was going on with herself. I know that is common, but it seemed a little excessive with her. It's rare that I don't like a main character, but Holly pretty much just got on my nerves.
The whole scene with Evan and his breakdown just irritated the hell out of me. If it really did happen like it was described in the book, no way would he have been treated like that.
The fact that Evan and Elias don't like each other is harped upon constantly, but really no reason is given. Same with Holly and Elias. He just didn't seem that bad to me.
There was entirely too much build up to the main action -- the book probably could have been shortened by half and still provided plenty of information. The characters I was most interested in -- Aunt Lulah, and Nicky and Alec -- we didn't see nearly enough of.
All in all, I thought the book was inconsistent. The writing itself held my interest, and the story was interesting, but I just didn't have that level of caring about the characters that is necessary to really get into a book. There were just too many places in it that caused me to say "Wait....what?" and have to pull back to figure out why that made sense (and more often than not, it didn't).

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Magical Interruptions, April 1, 2007

By 

Cheery You "henx" (Nagoya, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spellbinder: A Love Story With Magical Interruptions (Hardcover)

Like a lot of other people, I was excited to pick up Melanie Rawn's -Spellbinder- because I have enjoyed her work in the past. Spellbinder differs from her more traditional fantasy, and is more in the urban witch vein--I was reminded of books by Kelley Armstrong, Laura Anne Gilman, and Kim Harrison.

When Evan Lachlan meets Holly McClure, he thinks she's a freelance writer. Finding out that she's a popular best-selling (and rich) author (who makes more than he does) nearly ends their relationship, but finding out that she's a full-blown Witch doesn't bother him nearly as much. They confess their love and decide to marry. However, an evil man named Noel is sacrificing people and committing black magic, and he wants Holly's powerful blood to make his spells stronger. With the help of Holly's Witch buddy Elias, her college buddy Susannah, and her uncles Alec and Nicky, Holly and Evan must take Noel down so they can live happily ever after.

Having greatly enjoyed Melanie Rawn's Ruins of Ambrai series, I was rather disappointed by Spellbinder for several reasons. Most of them had to do with characterization. I found most of the main characters--Holly, Evan, Alec, Nicky, Elias, and Susannah--to be virtually indistinguishable. What Holly said in one scene, Nicky said in another--the word choice, tone, and sentiments were identical. Part of this can be explained by saying that these characters knew each other for some time, but not enough of it. There was no underlying character conflict. Everyone believed exactly the same thing about everything--they all had very, very similar political and moral beliefs, identical senses of humor and styles of teasing, and any disagreement was on the surface. When Holly and Evan disagree on the fate of their relationship after he gets in trouble at work, for example, there is no character conflict--there is only event conflict. Even the closest people differ sometimes, or misunderstand each other, but in this book not only does everyone agree exactly with everyone else (in the six main characters, at least), they all have known each other for too long and reveal too much in conversations. While carrying out her disciplinary action against Denise, Holly makes clever comments about Nicky's sexual orientation. In general, though, she was wildly unprofessional while carrying out her witch duties. People do not constantly make reference to their friends' histories in conversation, and especially not while carrying out a secret-identity assignment. People are not perfect for each other--everyone has flaws, and no matter how well you might match someone 90%, that last 10% will still be there. Holly and Evan were far too perfectly matched to be interesting--after a few hundred pages of watching them coo at each other (starting in the first week of their relationship) in Irish (despite both being at least fourth generation), I was ready to put the book down.

Although we, the readers, are repeatedly told how intelligent Holly is, I found few examples of this. She struck me as immature for her age--I was surprised when I figured out she was thirty-six instead of in her early twenties. I am in my early twenties, and saw little of my age group in her, though I guess her expensive apartment, list of publications, and BMW might have tipped me off--her career is too established for early twenties.

Five minutes after finishing the book, I had a hard time remembering Holly's name. The characters in this novel knew each other too well--there was no room for me, and no flaws in them for me to care about.

I look forward to Melanie Rawn's next Ambrai book, and hope that it will have better developed characters, like her previous novels.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh Dear!, May 16, 2007

By 

Jennifer L. Rinehart (United States of America) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spellbinder: A Love Story With Magical Interruptions (Hardcover)

I don't often feel moved to write a review, especially a bad one, but after buying this, in HARDBACK, well, I couldn't help but share my thoughts with the world. Dreadful, predictable and narcissitically silly come to mind. The book was a vanity piece for the author, something she should have handed out to close friends and family.

The real tragedy, of course, is that she has written some amazing books in the past. What happened Ms. Rawn?

I was hoping for something along the lines of Robin McKinley's Sunshine with a cool underworld ala Charlaine Harris or Kim Harrison, instead I have a book that I can't pass on to my best pals, bummer.