Spells (Laurel Series #2)

by Aprilynne Pike

Overview

"I can't just storm in and proclaim my intentions. I can't ‘steal' you away. I just have to wait and hope that, someday, you'll ask," Tamani said.

"And if I don't?" Laurel said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Then I guess I'll be waiting forever."

Although Laurel has come to accept her true identity as a faerie, she refuses to turn her back on her human life—and especially her boyfriend, David—to return to the faerie world.

But when she is summoned to Avalon, Laurel's feelings for the charismatic faerie sentry Tamani are undeniable. She is forced to make a choice—a choice that could break her heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061993428
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/04/2010
Series:	Laurel Series , #2
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	230,314
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
File size:	460 KB
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Aprilynne Pike has been spinning faerie stories since she was a child with a hyperactive imagination. She completed her BA in creative writing at the age of twenty at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho. Aprilynne lives with her husband and children in Arizona.

What People are Saying About This

Carrie Jones

“Spells is brilliant and lovely. Aprilynne Pike’s talent just continues to bloom and I am almost afraid to see how awesome her next book will be.”

Editorial Reviews

Spells is brilliant and lovely. Aprilynne Pike’s talent just continues to bloom and I am almost afraid to see how awesome her next book will be.” — Carrie Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Captivate and Need

“Mixing a little bit of Harry Potter and a lot of Twilight, Pike has hit on a winning combination. Yet it is her own graceful take on life inside Avalon that adds a shimmering patina sure to enthrall readers.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Rich with faerie mythology, this book will leave readers clamoring for the next installment.” — Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

From the Publisher

Spells is brilliant and lovely. Aprilynne Pike’s talent just continues to bloom and I am almost afraid to see how awesome her next book will be.

Carrie Jones

Mixing a little bit of Harry Potter and a lot of Twilight, Pike has hit on a winning combination. Yet it is her own graceful take on life inside Avalon that adds a shimmering patina sure to enthrall readers.

Booklist (starred review)

Rich with faerie mythology, this book will leave readers clamoring for the next installment.

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

"Mixing a little bit of Harry Potter and a lot of Twilight, Pike has hit on a winning combination. Yet it is her own graceful take on life inside Avalon that adds a shimmering patina sure to enthrall readers."

Booklist

Gr 7–10—This sequel to Wings (HarperTeen, 2009) begins with Laurel going to the Academy of Avalon to begin a summer of intensive training as a Fall faerie in order to protect her family from the threat of her troll nemesis, Jeremiah Barnes. The strict faerie social hierarchy begins to wear on her, causing her to question her place in that society. When she goes back to her life in the human world, she constantly feels the strain of wondering when Barnes will make his next move. Her relationship with David, her human boyfriend, has deepened, but she still feels ties to Tamani, her faerie sentry, and she constantly questions where she belongs. In the end, she is forced to choose between her two worlds. Pike develops her world with limited success. While Avalon is slightly interesting, Laurel's time there drags. Pike makes several attempts to explain historical and mythological people and events so they fit into her world—Eve, it seems was a misunderstood faerie—without fully fleshing out the whys or hows. The first part of the book plods and it is only toward the last 50 pages that the action picks up. Fans of the first book likely won't notice the overwrought writing and poor world-building, but others would do well to seek out the many other, better faerie stories.—Necia Blundy, Marlborough Public Library, MA

School Library Journal

In clean, fresh prose, never wilting in momentum as some middle volumes do, this second installment stays fragrant throughout. Laurel's a faerie, and faeries are plants. On her back, a blossom sprouts annually; she binds it down under her shirt to keep the secret. Briefly visiting magical Avalon, where she was born (but which she doesn't recall), she studies plant lore and faerie society. As is traditional in supernatural romance, two boys want her: human David, warm and devoted, and faerie sentry Tamani, sizzlingly attractive and pining for Laurel's return. Trolls stalk and entrap Laurel and her loved ones in the human world, seeking revenge and the gateway into Avalon, while a slick human woman with a special-ops team helps defeat trolls but rouses Laurel's suspicion. As in Wings (2009), Pike brazenly codes physical deformity and asymmetry as evil, and her engagingly clear prose sometimes blunders into floridness when describing Avalon. Among the current cornucopia of supernatural romances (and despite the presumably unintentional humor of a heroine who literally tastes like nectar), though, this one blooms. (Fantasy. YA)

Kirkus Reviews