Spellfall

by Katherine Roberts

Overview

Natalie saw the first spell in the supermarket car park. She was wet and cold and had better things to do than pick up someone else's litter. But the trap had been baited by one who knew a lot more about spells than she did...

Snatched from her family and stranded in another world, can Natalie persuade her kidnapper's son Merlin to help her escape in time to save the enchanted land of Earthaven, where unicorns roam and giant trees provide sanctuary for her mother's soul?

Originally published by Chicken House/Scholastic in 2001, Spellfall was selected by American independent booksellers as the "book most likely to fill the Harry Potter void this fall".

"A thrilling and fast-paced fantasy adventure with shades of Tolkien and Pullman. Superb." The Bookseller.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781534681545
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	09/21/2016
Series:	Earthaven , #1
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.61(d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

Editorial Reviews

Magic flows wondrously through the veins of youthful Natalie. Her mother came from Earthaven, an enchanted world beyond the Thrallstone Gateway, and her father is a Thrall who hawks spells between the worlds. Suspecting her power, Spellmage kidnaps her. But gaining her freedom is only part of her new challenge: Earthaven is under siege and, just as Natalie is learning the power of her magic, she must learn to use it boldly.

bn.com

While Roberts (Song Quest) creatively blends aspects of modern society with traditional elements of fantasy, the novel is ultimately weighed down with explanations of the inner workings of Earthaven, an imaginary parallel world. Natalie lives in an "eco-friendly" suburban development with her alcoholic father, stepmom and stepbrother until Hawk, an evil wizard (or Caster), kidnaps her. He knows something that she does not: her late mother was a Spell Lady and Natalie inherited her powers. Hawk plans to use Natalie to invade the enchanted Earthaven and poison a soultree (an intelligent, spell-producing organism) with a chemical solution. It's up to Natalie and her allies who include her stepbrother; Hawk's bumbling son, Merlin; a wolf that can communicate with her; and some unicorns to stop him. Like Philip Pullman's daemons, the characters here possess "familiars" (animal companion/soulmates). Timely examples lend the narrative immediacy (e.g., to prevent the poisoning from being fatal, Merlin must teach the soultree what he knows about fighting computer viruses), but Roberts switches between so many places and characters that readers may have trouble keeping track of the story line and all of Earthaven's rules. These challenges, plus the fact that Natalie learns little about making magic, may leave readers disappointed. Ages 9-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 5-7-Natalie's father never told her that her mother was a powerful Spell Lady from Earthaven, a magical universe beyond the Boundary. Her mother has been dead for years, and her grieving, human father intended to protect his daughter from her dangerous heritage. But now that Natalie is 12, a wicked Spell Lord who has been exiled from across the Boundary wants to enslave her and use her powers to invade Earthaven. After he kidnaps her, Natalie learns her true lineage, enters the other world, gains the loyalty of the Spell Lord's downtrodden son and assorted other allies, and foils his evil plans. The action bounces back and forth between Natalie's contemporary world and the land of spells, unicorns, and giant sentient trees. Unfortunately, the protagonist's plucky charm, the fast-paced plot, and the unusual setting aren't enough to outweigh the sometimes-hackneyed dialogue and unpersuasive secondary characters, whose motivations are often unclear or divulged too late in the story to be convincing. For a more satisfying look at novice enchanters in parallel worlds, try Diane Duane's So You Want to Be a Wizard (Harcourt, 1996) and its sequels.-Beth Wright, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

More an idea person than a storyteller, Roberts fails to do justice to a promising premise and cast in this tale of magic and parallel worlds. A bit of litter with an eye-catching shimmer ensnares young Natalie in the schemes of Hawk, a cruel "spellmage" planning to invade the enchanted realm of Earthaven from which he has been exiled, and to infect the huge, intelligent "soultrees" there with a vaguely defined biochemical poison. Roberts trots in a fine array of unicorns, spells, and quarrelsome mages, but she shows no great regard for logical consistency, whether it be a character using a crude word one time for no good reason or layers of complicated rules of magic that require repeated readings to comprehend. With the help of several new allies, including her punk stepbrother and a telepathic white wolf with a Scots accent, Natalie battles the evil mage in a series of ineptly staged confrontations (an army of hundreds that is so close that Natalie can see a "glint of triumph" in the eyes of its rear rank, is driven back by a dozen archers, for instance) that foil Hawk in a way that closes his gate to Earthhaven but leaves one for sequels wide open. The main characters (except for Hawk, who is entirely villainous) do show signs of complexity, but that adds only dashes of flavor to this bland fantasy. (Fiction. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews