I can’t recommend this book since it definitely needs reworking as far as pacing and characters. I also didn’t like that there were multiple characters that had too much going on with them and so I could never really understand what was going on with this “world”. We are just dumped into it from the start, with nothing explained clearly so that we could make sense of what was going on.

The saying 'You can't judge a book by its cover' comes to mind with Spell Crazy. With such an eye-catching cover and an interesting blurb, I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, it doesn't live up to those expectations. It all starts with a love spell that goes sideways. When I say it starts there, I'm speaking literally - that's where it starts, and if it sounds like we're thrown into the middle of a story, that's what it feels like. From there, it's a lot of characters in need of development beyond their libido, rather simplistic dialogue, and a scattered storyline. For me, the most interesting character was the dragon, but that just wasn't enough to save this one. To be honest, I finally gave up and started skimming in hopes of finding something to catch and hold my attention, but the whole thing just fell flat for me, and I can't say that I'd recommend this one.

Athena is a clueless witch whose hormones were going wild, she found herself caught up in high drama all because sex was uppermost on her mind. She had not the vaguest idea of the magnitude of trouble she had released or what she was dealing with. An interesting and mildly entertaining read.

The main character of the book is young witch Athena, who is struggling to become a priestess at Avalon, England. When she attempts a love spell it goes horribly wrong as instead of love she attracts demons and now she must attempt to rectify the situation before she is expelled from the school by Viviane, the head mistress.

I was attracted to the book by the lovely cover and the interesting blurb, but the book turned out differently than I thought. There was really a lot going on in the story. Maybe it should just have focused on Athena and her love interest instead of including other storylines as well. The characters could have been fleshed out more as well. There was also a lot of sex, distracting at times. I found myself skimming through a lot of the book to get back at the central storyline.

Conclusion: the idea was good, but the execution lacked for me.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I found the blurb of the book interesting yet was disappointed with the actual story. The idea of a witch university where they train to be a priestess of the moon was intriguing. Athena is a struggling witch, the bottom of her classes and always in trouble, she is just about to be promoted to a full priestess and she’s determined to make it. But when a love spell accidentally turns into a demon summoning spell, all hell breaks loose. Literally.

With demons strolling around the campus, Athena and her best friend Laurel attempt to send the demons back before the head of the school, Viviane, finds out. Meanwhile, to deal with the demons Viviane calls her old friend (and ex-lover) Tak the demon hunter to help. With two different approaches, the two teams try to solve the problem.

I found the characters flat, lacking any real spark to capture me. They were alright, but I wasn’t invested in any and could have easily left the book unfinished without a second thought. To make matters worse, Tak and Viviane had the arrangement that he would help with the demons, and in exchange, she would sleep with him. Through flashbacks, we discover the two had a sexual relationship years ago, and Viviane was deeply in love with him only to find he had a wife and children. Heartbroken, Viviane hadn’t spoken to him in years until the demon outbreak. You’d think that after such a painful betray and breakup, Viviane wouldn’t be keen to hook up with him again, especially not so suddenly nor as payment.

It was interesting that the demons weren’t mindless, violent beast. Instead, they speak and act human, though with exaggerated desires and behaviours. To send them back through the portal, Athena tricks them, claiming there’s going to be a big party tomorrow night. The demons all agree to go with little effort from Athena. Not matter the versions of demons, they are always shown as being very cunning and intelligent, yet these demons were anything but.

This book was very sex-obsessed, people always running around and hooking up. This was explained by the fact that the presence of demons makes humans give in to their baser instincts, especially sex. It was very tiresome. Instead of dealing with the important problem, they’d be having sex. Again. Everyone is sexually interested in Athena which made no real sense, she seemed average enough, yet everyone was infatuated with her. Even Tak, who you’d think with all the sex he’d been having with Viviane he’d be satisfied. The demons, though very inhuman in appearances, are seductive to humans. Very few people would find a huge beastly creature sexually attractive, and it made my skin crawl.

The writing could be improved by some more description of the events and the emotions and thoughts of the characters. Each event came across as rushed with little description or conflict. Every challenge was solved quickly and easily like there was no real threat to the characters. This writing style could have been greatly enhanced with some bolstering of each element to help fill out the story.

I did enjoy Moska the dragon. I love magical characters with a familiar, and it was great to see Athena and Moska bond. Overall, I found this book flat with uninteresting characters, conflict and plot. Perhaps this is because I found it frustrating when the characters would be having random sex while the demons ran rampant. I’m sure some people enjoy this type of story, but I am not one of them. Even skimming the book, I found it hard to be interested. I give it 1/5.

a book for young adults. About a witch who is leraning her profession and makes mistakes, mosstly funny one and falls in love. And all this is kind of complicated. Fun and easy to read.

There’s a lot going on in this book. Demons are summoned by mistake when a priestess in training makes a mistake with a love spell. Chaos commences. Her trainer is involved her own drama, which I found a bit distracting and detracted from the story. The demons were humorous and added to the book. The relationship between Sean and Athena was sweet and their growing attraction proved she did not need a love spell at all. The setting in England was intriguing and who doesn’t love dragons?!

I think this is a good idea but somehow it fell flat: bidimensional characters, plot hole.
On a general level it seemed to me this was a book that was missing some love: terrible formatting, no Goodreads entry.
I think that some editing could turn this into a good book as there is potential.
I wanted to love as I really liked the blurb but that wasn't possible.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC