strange and random happenstance: Bewitched

Now You See Them by Elly Griffiths
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: October, 3rd 2019
Format: Kindle, 352 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Ten years and three kids ago Edgar Stephens proposed to Emma Holmes. They were are the start of their lives together. Emma had loved Edgar so fiercely while Edgar was blinded by the dazzle that was his fiance Ruby, the daughter of his best friend, the famous magician Max Mephisto. Since their last case together in 1953 they all went in different directions; Edgar and Emma to wedded bliss, Ruby to television stardom, and Max to Hollywood where even he settled down and had a few more kids with a starlet. They are reunited in Brighton for the funeral of Diablo. Who would have thought the irascible old performer would last this long? But the funeral brings them all together to catch up. Only none of their lives are as perfect as they seem. Emma in particular is dissatisfied with her lot. Her husband is now chief of police whereas she's chief of nappies. They should never have had a third kid. Sure Edgar was happy to finally have a son, but Emma was finally thinking that she would be out from under the yoke of domesticity and could get back to work. She was once the amazing Emma Holmes, always cracking the case. Now Edgar is always talking about the young girl who has replaced her on the force, Meg. Damn Meg, damn nappies, damn them all. When a young girl goes missing from Emma's old school Roedean, she wants in on the case. She HAS to be in on the case. It's the only thing that will make her feel human again. With the help of her friend, local journalist Sam, the two of them start to uncover clues that this girl's disappearance is just one of many. Clues they decide to withhold from the police who are more concerned with a film star the missing girl was obsessed with. But Emma makes serious errors in judgement. Again and again. She has been out of the game too long and her desire to prove her worth clashes with her judgement and it places everyone in danger. But worst is that she has endangered her own daughter. Will they be able to save her daughter as the police have to deal with the violence of the Mods and the Rockers on the beaches or will it be too late?

I don't want to be all cliched and say this series has lost it's magic, because at this point I haven't read The Midnight Hour so it might redeem itself, but I have never read a series that went from sublime to shit so quickly. The time jump could be blamed, but I don't really think that's the source of the problems. It's just that everything about the book is wrong. Instead of letting the mystery be the driving force it's on the back burner until the last minute with a solution that I saw from the start and the cringeworthy cliche of child in danger and oodles of violence towards women. And as for the characters? Can we talk about a more morose and miserable lot? What happened to these people I knew and loved? Yes, ten years can change a lot, but it's more like Elly Griffiths lost her connection to the characters... Rivalry among the women? Emma who is now a stay at home mom is jealous of the new female cop Meg just because that used to be her? Emma could have welcomed Meg with open arms as the next generation, the woman to carry on her legacy, but no, that wouldn't be in fitting with this series new grim aesthetic. And as for Meg not liking Emma without even meeting her? Please. And that's not even my biggest issue! Was the point of this whole book to explode the myth of happily ever after with Emma and Edgar's marriage being so steeped in dissatisfaction? I mean, couldn't that at least have been a source of joy? A source of at least some version of contentment for at least one of them? I just wanted to yell at everyone and say that this wasn't them, following which I would channel Cher and tell them to snap out of it. What's most annoying though is if you look hard enough the elements were here, we could have had Max doing some Maxim de Winter shit at his big county house now that he's lord of the manor, we could have had Ruby doing a British Bewitched, instead, everyone is bemoaning and bitching about EVERYTHING. Which makes me bemoan and bitch about what happened to my favorite new series. Seriously, what happened? Where is the magic!?!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: Bewitched, Brighton, Cher, Disappearance, Edgar Stephens, Elly Griffiths, Emma Holmes, Hollywood, Magic Men, Max Mephisto, Maxim de Winter, Moonstruck, Murder Most Foul, Now You See Them, The Midnight Hour

Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles Book 1) by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Published by: Little Brown
Publication Date: December 1st, 2009
Format: Hardcover, 563 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Ethan Lawson Wate dreams of the day he can finally leave Gatlin. The small town is suffocating him and his home life isn't the greatest either with his father being a recluse since his mother's death. But that's not Ethan's only dream. He dreams of a girl. He dreams of falling through trees with this girl. This nameless faceless girl whom he clearly loves. On the first day of school he meets Lena Duchannes, quite literally the girl of his dreams. Lena isn't like the other girls, and this draws Ethan to her. In fact she's not like any girls, she's magical, being a Caster. She feels like her entire life is living on borrowed time because come February and her 16th birthday she will either go to the good or the bad. Therefore it's very inconvenient that Ethan and Lena start to fall in love. But perhaps Ethan is what she needs to survive.

Back in December 2009 I had been blogging for about seven months. With my blogging I started to become more savvy about books in general. I became a connoisseur about my book purchases, not buying everything that looked good, instead seeing what other people said and relying more on my fellow blogger community. This of course was a two edged sword, sure I wasn't indiscriminately buying every book out there, but I was getting so many recommendations that, well, my book buying increased more then decreased. One book that everyone was excited for was Beautiful Creatures, and their excitement was contagious. Ironically not only did I buy the book but I won a copy from Little Brown! So I was all set to dive right into this series, and as is usually the case, I didn't get around to it for a few years. It was in fact the release of the movie that finally spurred me into action. Obviously I couldn't NOT watch a movie staring Emma Thompson, I suffered through that second Nanny McPhee movie after all. But the book had to come first!

What really struck me about Beautiful Creatures is it's exotic local. Yes, Gatlin, South Carolina is exotic, at least for popular YA. Usually YA likes to be set among the same popular cities as urban fantasy, laying in the shadows of New York or Chicago. Or it's dystopian and some future unknown ruin of a city. Or it's both, ahem Veronica Roth. But here we have a very recognizable southern US that brings with it all the baggage of the War of Northern Aggression (I should note that all my family fought for the North). There is a charming southerness to the book filled with Civil War reenactments and swampy cemeteries. This brings with it a certain Gothic romanticism to it that makes you think that magic isn't the most unlikely thing that could happen in this setting. Garcia and Stohl capture the town and the environment so well that it almost becomes a character in it's own right.

But despite it's southern hospitality there is still a small town mentality against anything "other." Even if Lena Duchannes wasn't a Caster with supernatural powers, her being an outsider, as well as a relative of the town's local recluse, would make her the subject of gossip. Add to that her "bewitching" Ethan, and there doesn't need a window shattering to make her an outcast. The window shattering just ups the whole situation to Carrie levels and there's more then just one or two hints to the Stephen King classic. Of course this being Gatlin they opt for liquid soap instead of pig's blood. Also Gatlin is a little more organized then King's small town and Lena is far more in control and aware of her powers to let the situation escalate. But there are several leaflets against Lena as well as a petition to have her thrown out of school, but sadly for them, the mean girls don't succeed.

Yet the Carrie undertone isn't the only undertone. To me there is a lot more of the Bewitched and Sabrina the Teenage Witch vibe then any other touchstone out there. I'd say in fact it leans very heavily on Sabrina, what with how Lena can't be raised by her mother, and that a Caster can go good or evil on their sixteenth birthday. It reminded me strongly of Sabrina and her evil twin. Yes, I love Sabrina and I'm not afraid to admit it. But despite all these great undertones and references and the atmosphere, there was just something missing. Beautiful Creatures lacks it's own identity. It becomes muddled between past and present mythology and it made the overall book quickly forgettable. Yes, despite reading this book fairly recently, I had to go and read a synopsis on Wikipedia to refresh myself as to what happened before writing this review. Because in all seriousness, if someone was to say what this book was about I'd say people running around in the south and there's some SCA fun. That isn't the book though, that's just my take away, and it's a lame one at that.