While I have thoroughly loved books from this dynamic duo in the past, this one just lacked for me. The synopsis of this book sold me on the promise of fierce witches, and instead I'm left with disappointment. The plot was disjointed. The pacing was slow. And the characters felt underdeveloped. So frustrating.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with the audiobook copy in exchange for an honest review.

I honestly would have given the prologue 5 stars. That was my favorite part of the book. The beginning really grabbed my attention and was so well written. I loved the large cat familiar. I wish the whole book had been about Sarah, Dorothy and Odysseus. I did like the premise of the rest of book that the two sisters in present time are responsible for looking after their town and protecting the 5 gates. I did find it was harder to differentiate between the different POVs while listening to the audiobook. The two sisters felt very similar. I know they are twins but it felt like one POV. The book was a little over descriptive to me in the dialog between the characters. Also I felt the sex scene was haphazardly thrown into the book and the details were uncomfortably descriptive for a YA book. The book was overall just okay. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t one of my favorites.

I received this audiobook from Netgalley for an honest review.
First I agree with most other reviews of this book, if it were not for one very unnecessary sex scene this is on the middle grade young adult book. The writing is fine, the research seemed okay but I just didn't get excited about the characters. I did finish the book but it simply didn't leave much behind when it was over. The narration of the audiobook was really good and I can usually find something to care about in a book this one just fell flat.

The Goode witches have always been the gatekeepers of four gates to the underworld. On their sixteenth birthday Hunter and Mercy Goode each choose a God or Goddess to serve. However the ceremony is cut short when a creature breaks the gates and kills their mother, the twins are now on their own to close the gates and protect them. With tension brewing between the sister from the loss and hunters choice of choosing a God instead of a goddess, the task just became a whole lot harder.


I liked the idea behind this book and the story was good but I found the way the dialog was a little too valley girl and not very modern. The witches theme is an interesting theme change from the house of night series I previously read from these authors. But it felt like the rituals written in this story were taken from the house of night rituals. It felt very close with the way the candles are described and how everyone reacted to them.
Other than that I find this a pretty solid story especially for a start of a series. It has diverse characters and the twins have a clear difference in personalities. I think fans of previous books by these two authors will definitely like it. It is aimed for a young adult age range and you can tell by the story.


Narration:
The Narration is very clear for this novel. I liked most of the Narration except the valley girl voice at times. The story was well read and overall a good reading without any errors. Her voice made the story flow very well. Overall I enjoyed this as an audiobook.

I really wanted to like this book, but it just did not land with me.

I really enjoyed the House of Night series by these authors, so I was surprised that I did t care for this book.

What got me hung up was that for most of the book, the twin sisters seemed pretty interchangeable and I had a hard time telling them apart. Also, the teenagers in this American town kept using British slang. Is that a thing now? I found it very jarring. Lastly, the story felt a little all over the place. The influences from different cultures felt forced and there seemed to be a lot of info dumping.

I was interested enough to read until the end of the book, but I will not be continuing on with this series.

The book was great, narrator was pretty good, and story was okay. It wasn't something I would normally read, but it was good as an alternative. I think I will go back and give it a second pass. If you are into this type of book, it is probably an excellent choice. I am not, so the fact that I want to go back is probably a positive.

Hunter and Mercy just came of age and accepted their god and goddess to guide them in their witch way. At the ceremony, their mother dies. It is up to the girls to figure out what is going on. As weird things keep happening in town, these girls continue searching for answers and solutions.
Opinion
I listened to the audiobook. The cadence and tone the narrator put forth was enchanting. She made it a true experience to listen to this book.
The story was also enchanting. It was quite easy to get caught up in what was happening with these twins. The ending was quite good and one I did not expect.
Many thanks to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC of this audiobook.

Audiobook provided by NetGalley and Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest review.

Soooo a white lady travels from Salem, MA to rural Illinois and finds a place with monsters that the Indian tribes living there can't fix... but she can? And the monsters just happen to be coming from portals to the underworlds of 4 other religions? But no fear! This white lady can stop all of it! And her bloodline will keep those "bad" gates to other religions closed so that only their white lady magic will be around. Hmmmmm this smells a little too much of white colonialism for my tastes.

And also, while it's not fair to blame this on the Casts - as this is a long running literary trope and not just a fault of their writing. But I am awfully tired of writers feeling they need to kill off the parent(s) of the protagonist(s) in order for them to embark on the quest/fight/journey to save the world. As if the journey of self discovery and full acceptance of their powers/their responsibility to society cannot come about unless they go through the traumatic experience of becoming an orphan.

I had really wanted to like this book, the premise sounded interesting. But it was really hard to get over the colonialist sentiments and honestly, even if I overlooked that, there wasn't much originality or depth to make up for that shortcoming. This felt like all the clichés of YA lit wrapped up together that haters of YA lit would use to prove their point. Which would be a shame because there are so many amazing authors of YA out there... and so many amazing YA books centering around the Salem witches. This one just missed the mark.

Cassandra Campbell does a good job with the audiobook narration, but I'm fairly certain this would have been a DNF for me if I hadn't received an ARC of it.

I had high hopes for this novel. Unfortunately, the book does not live up to its premise. The Prologue was incredible. Seeing how Sarah Goode got away from her captors in Salem excited me. I assumed that the story picked up from her heritage at some point and kept the story in the same realm.

However, after three chapters, I had to call it quits on this book. There are many reasons why I couldn’t go on. But what made me turn the book off was that the mother's reaction to her 16-year-old daughter having her first boyfriend was to talk about how to get said boyfriend to stimulate her clitoris. I’m sorry, but this is unnecessary and disgusting.

Another thing I didn’t like was that Mercie’s boyfriend is a complete jerk. I don’t care if the guy is nervous, or drunk, or any other excuse out there. There is no excuse to behave like a jackass, period. All this does is teach young men that it is okay to act this way and teach girls to expect disrespectful treatment. This portrayal is unacceptable and a huge problem in American culture.

The narration is horrible. The woman reading this book sounds like a 40-year-old pretending to be 16. The voices are shrill and gave me a headache. Also, while I understand that teenagers curse and act foolishly when at a party. Peer pressure is a real thing, but the affected voices are ridiculous.

It is with great sadness that I rate Spells Trouble 1 star out of 5.

Thank you Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the advanced listener copy. I had some hopes for this book because I did enjoy The Casts’ House of Night series. The narrator made it difficult to decipher if the twins were teens or 5 year olds and their dynamic with their mother was a complete turnoff. I may try reading this book again as a paper copy, but the audio was not for me. DNF at 14%.

I was able to get an ARC copy of Spells Trouble audiobook through NetGalley. To start I was to say I loved Cassandra Campbell's performance! She is one of my absolutely favorite narrators and Spells Trouble did not disappoint.

Spells Trouble is a YA novel that follows two twins Mercy and Hunter through their spells and magic. It combines many different pantheons of gods into one intertwined story. You meet with characters of from Norse, Greek and Egyptian mythology. The story is exciting and keeps you listening. There is LGBT representation among the otherwise regular groups of jocks that fill teen novels. For anyone considering using this in a class beware that there are a few sexual scenes between characters and references from others. I am excited for the next novel and to see what happens to the Goode sisters.

I do wish I heard more about Sarah Goode and the founding of the town, it was briefly mentioned... I am hoping for more in the next few books!

I adored this novel. In my youth, I read books like Cate Tiernan's Sweep. The unraveling of witchcraft through the books was one of my favorite things. This book delivered that nostalgic feeling. I loved the relationship between the twins. I am eager to see what comes next in this series.

One thing I would like to state of the Cast's writing is that I never understand why their novels are labeled young adult when there are erotic scenes in many of their books. I would never let my thirteen year old niece read this.

I received Spells Trouble audio book for free in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Net Galley, the publisher, and the authors.

I was excited to listen to this book and liked the premise of witches descended from original Salem witches. I feel that the seen between Mercy and her boyfriend could have been a little less graphic. I don't think the scene added to the story. I liked the story overall and felt it read pretty quickly.

This book. THIS BOOK!

I don’t usually read witchy books, but the blurb for this one sounded too good to pass up. Twin witches Hunter and Mercy are Gatekeepers - protectors of the gates to the different underworlds.

When their mother is the first in a string of murders, the teens have to come together with their magic to save themselves, their town and the world.

The growth of Mercy and Hunter learning their magic as they figure out a spell to heal the trees and close the portals was great to read.

I especially liked how the two girls brought together their family’s historical magic with modern technology to create the spell.

I was absolutely wrapped up in the story and fund myself heading out for walks, picking up long awaited projects and working past closing at work just to keep listening.

I will say, though, there was some stunted dialogue that seemed to throw off the flow of the story sometimes. And an awkwardly explicit steamy sexual scene that felt both out of place and unnecessary. It also felt incredibly inappropriate for a YA Fantasy book, since it was very explicit.

That said, holy cliff hanger! While I knew this was the first book in a series, it ends on one heck of a cliff hanger that had me screaming at my phone in frustration!

P.C. and Kristen Cast must be stopped. For the good of humanity. I'll do my part by chucking this book into the recycling bin.

Thank you so much to Wednesday Books for the physical ARC, but please don't hate me because I'm about to be very honest with you all about how much I disliked this. I drafted this entire review when I was halfway through, and now that I've finished ... this is the kinder version.

It's very concerning that I cannot tell either sister apart, and that's not because they are twins. There is zero distinction between Hunter's and Mercy's voices, an issue not helped by the fact that the chapters do not tell you whose POV you are in. There is nothing to distinguish them from the other in tone, reaction or action. One is supposed to be more level-headed, the other more emotional, and I couldn't tell you who. It's surprising to me that they are so monotonous when two authors wrote this. The same goes for the other characters, who are more caricatures of tropes. The over enthusiastic best friend, the douchey boyfriend, the superior boy best friend. Among other reasons I will suggest below, I formed no connection to a single character as they are completely unmemorable.

The writing itself was ... not good. My word, it was like being inside a painful 2000's satire teen movie. It's rather slow and uneventful because we need to dig into every single detail of the minutiae. The dialogue is so cringey because no one talks like that. The mother especially--it was painful to read these huge run-on paragraphs of 15 thoughts dropped without any sense of the character or emotion behind it. Worse is that there is so much tell versus show in the dialogue itself. The girls literally narrate so much of what they are doing, reminding themselves of the plot and events that happened. It makes it so unnatural and stiff to read. And please don't get me started on how they talk. Apparently teenagers still talk like valley girls with "hugsies" and "oh em gee, where is my pressie?" I'm disappointed that after 15 years, the Cast duo still writes with a style so childish and bland.

A great disappointment for me was the magic. A story about witch sisters is what drew me to this, and I expected proper witchcraft with covens and such, and with how the world is set up the magic could have been so cool. There is the possibility to have creative new worlds and monsters, and instead it was just lazy. No wired, only tired. In a nutshell, there are five trees in Goodeville (even the name is unimaginative) that serve as the doors to five different underworlds: Greek, Norse, Japanese, Hindu and Egyptian. Guess what? That didn't sit well with me at all. Why on earth would the door to the Hindu underworld be in the middle of nowhere Illinois and protected by a couple of white girls? Make it make sense. There were also elements of indigenous peoples, and while I'm not sure of the authors' identities, Hunter and Mercy are not indigenous, so reading about them using things like Apache Tears for spells felt uncomfy.

Finally, I want to take one minute to say that I am all for sex-positive YA. Teens have sex and there is no reason to make it taboo ... but this was not it. Never ever ever again do I want to read a teenager describe their bra-less mom's breasts as ample yet perky. Nor do I want to read about that mother assume the size of her daughter's boyfriend's d*ck from a ring size, ask about her daughter's cl*toris, and say you're welcome for the familial trait of multiple org*sms. All in one page. And that was just the START of the WRONG in this book. Out of nowhere there is an explicit sex scene multiple pages long between two sixteen-year-olds involving a blow-job and hand stimulation. It is the most uncomfortable and unneeded part of the entire book and the exact part where it lost any chance at redemption. The fact that a mother-daughter duo wrote this makes me want to claw my eyes out.

It genuinely floors me that this was published. In my opinion, I believe this to be a story that was picked up by the publisher because of the name attached to it rather than the quality of the story, and I'm sorry I wasted my time with it. The House of Night series was atrocious when I read it in high school and the problematic themes have clearly continued in their newer works. Now, please excuse me while I go bleach my eyeballs.

I really wanted to love this one because I have loved past works from P.C. and Kristin Cast, and thought this had a lot of potential after reading the description. I unfortunately don't feel that this one lived up to their past works. Surprisingly, my favorite part of this entire book was the prologue! It was so well written but I felt the rest of the book didn't match the style and feel of the prologue and instead focused on the daughters and their naive and immature struggles. This just felt a bit too young for me (although I love YA typically).

Thank you to St. Martin's Press - Wednesday Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

Though this movel started off strong, it quickly fell into that cliche YA category of books that ought to of come out straight after Twilight. I struggled to care much about either character, and the side characters weren't fleshed out enough to save the story. I did very much enjoy the audiobook narrator though.

This book feels like the Cast's read The Raven cycle and was like hmm now how can I make this witchy and more girl power with some cringe?

Because WHY did we need a blow job scene from a 16 year old. The only other books I've read of theirs was the first couple of House of Night and it had one too in the first book..... Should be expect a weird sex scene later too with a way too mature guy??

BUT there's just something about witchy books when they are on their way to making potions that just keeps me so invested, a couple of murders really keeps it going too.

As much as I wanted to love a book about sister witches "of Salem", I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in this one. I almost gave up on it in the beginning, when it was taking way too long for anything interesting to happen and I was just being subjected to a bunch of teen drama that didn't seem to have much importance to the main story. But just when my patience was about to run out, witchy things started happening and I decided to give it a little more time. The overall plot had potential -- I enjoyed the mystery aspects, and the little bits of world building we did get were interesting. Unfortunately, it was hard for me to stay engaged due to several factors. The teens used a lot of "teen speak" that felt very unnatural and inaccurate for teens right now (who says "BRB" or "jelly" (to mean jealous) in a normal/serious conversation?). There were a lot of unnecessary pop culture references thrown in that will just date the book and didn't add anything that couldn't have had the same effect with a different description. I was confused by the fact that there were a lot of UK English terms throughout the book that felt very misplaced for a book set in rural Illinois ("bloody hell" and "sod it" were commonly repeated phrases). Even the audiobook narrator felt very unnatural and the characters' voices seemed stilted and fake, which made it hard to immerse myself in the story. The saving grace here, for me at least (and why I gave it 3 stars instead of 2), was all of the witchy stuff. When Mercy and Hunter were engaging in their witchcraft rituals, it was a comforting and familiar thread that made me enjoy what I was hearing. If the story had focused more on that part (and the main magical conflict), I would have liked this a lot more.

I love a good witch story, but this one fell just a bit flat for me.

The funny part was that many of the human interactions felt wrong, but the witch and creatures from other worlds were written in a believable way. Some of the dialogue was odd, and I rolled my eyes very hard when the 16 year old had three orgasms while fooling around with her terrible boyfriend.

I wish we got more of the story of Sarah Goode, who was written about in the prologue. That is the part of the book that had me hooked.