Friday, December 27, 2013

Review - Spellweaver by C.J. Bridgeman @CJBridgemanUK




Spellweaver
The Spellweaver Chronicles #1
by C.J. Bridgeman

Goodreads blurb:  Book One of the Spellweaver Chronicles

Felicity Lucas never really knew her mother. Even though they had lived together for all the fourteen years that Felicity had been alive, they had barely even had a meaningful conversation. It was a relationship that was far from perfect.

So when her mother dies in a car crash and Felicity is sent to live with her estranged father in a deprived London borough, she is determined to move on. It isn't easy - content with her solitude, she's never had friends before, but the most popular girl in her new school won't leave her alone and she's forced to attend counselling. To make things worse, it's obvious that her father doesn't want her around.

It is only after she discovers a book of spells and is attacked by a strange boy who can conjure flames in his hands that she starts to realise that her mother was far more than what she seemed. She had a great many secrets, secrets that promise to thrust Felicity into a terrifying world of magic and straight into the path of beings who are determined to destroy her...



About the Author:  Claire Bridgeman is a secondary school English teacher living in Norwich, England, with her husband, their 1 year old daughter Pearl, their black fluffy cat and the fly infestation currently inhabiting the conservatory. She has written many books but it was only in 2013, at the age of 28, that she felt her work was good enough to be thrust upon the general public. She thinks it’s an awful shame that there isn’t more creative writing in the current education system of the UK and believes that every child should be encouraged to explore the wondrous depths of his or her imagination through an artistic medium.

Bridgeman loves all things fantasy. At the age of 16 she went to see The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring at the cinema 7 times. She recently replayed Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark just to relive the Valen Shadowbreath romance. She wishes that Alistair from Dragon Age were a real person (so she could marry him). Her favourite book series is the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. She met him once. He was very nice.

Her debut novel is an amalgamation of all her favourite fantasy things – a pinch of Dungeons & Dragons, mix in some Buffy the Vampire Slayer (without the vampires) and top the whole thing off with a sprinkling of Harry Potter and there you have it – the Spellweaver Chronicles. Bridgeman hopes to tell human stories as much as fantasy ones, stories that deal with common, everyday themes and feelings like love, loss, grief, friendship and bullying. She wants to explore human emotion and experience using the fantasy genre, and with urban fantasy in particular, she feels that she has found the place to plant her stories and watch them grow.

Connect with Claire:

My Thoughts - 3 out of 5 unicorns - I liked it!!
**Received ebook from the author for an honest review

The cover is beautiful & magical and totally what attracted me to the book when the author was looking for reviews.

This book is the first book in the series.  It is beautifully written and learned some new things (I had to look up what Boxing Day is because we don’t have this in the US and both my mom and grandma didn’t know either - made me feel better that I wasn’t the only one).  I always look up words that I’m not sure of because I’m from the US and want to make sure I understand what is happening especially if it is written how people talk in London because they have a different vocabulary than I do :)

This book had some very slow moments, but it is what I have come to find is typical for the first book in a series.  You have some mystery that you slowly learn about, and you get to know Felicity and the twins really well.  I really like the twins and Felicity was finally coming into her own at the end of the book.  I am not saying too much because I don’t want to give anything away, but there is magic, secrets, lies, and attacks.

I think this is going to be a fantastic series and can’t wait to see where it goes in the future.  There is so much potential built when this book ended.

I always enjoy finding new authors and series, and this is Claire’s first book.  I will definitely keep an eye out for more.

I recommend this book to YA Paranormal fans :)

Interested in reading???

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