Never have I watched a book trailer and wanted to read a book more than when I saw the trailer for Family Magic.
But the life of a book blogger sometimes doesn't allow for just fun reading. However, I did see a passing tweet about a book birthday bash that was offering various in the series. I couldn't pass up the chance, so I entered. Turns out I won the first four books in the Hayle Coven. Now I just had to find the time to read them. I had a lot of leave to take in December and decided that I would take a vacation from the have to reads and read for fun.
What I wasn't expecting was how drawn into the story I would be. When I picked up Family Magic I thought that I would just read the one book. This series is kind of like a bag of potato chips. I would have immediately started on Witch Hunt if my Nook had been about to power down. And I pretty much powered through Demon Child and The Wild in the same manner.
Buy Family Magic at Amazon
Main character Sydlynn comes from a long line of coven leader and her mother is one of the most powerful they have had. Her father is a demon lord. And you thought your family was dysfunctional. Add to it that her grandmother, an extremely powerful witch in her own right, has been stripped her sanity. Thankfully, she was saved the demon looks that her baby sister has to keep camouflaged. (Could you imagine being sixteen and having horns?). Oh, and there's a demon teenage boy living in the house, but he's a cat (yeah, a little Sabrina, Teenage Witch-ish).
Sydlynn is fighting her heritage, and while she doesn't want to accept her place, she will not let anyone on the outside threaten her family.
Buy Witch Hunt at Amazon
That pretty much sums up the first four books. It is basically the same story over and over and by the end of The Wild, I started wondering how many times a single family can face complete annihilation before the story turns stale. There are 20 books in this series and few spin-off series. That being said, I still feel the need to continue with the tale (thought I'm not sure I'll make it through all 20).
There are a number of side stories going on along with the main conflict. Teens will identify with the internal struggle Sydlynn has over who she wants to be, who she is, and her loyalty to her family. The characters, though with otherworldly powers, are very real. I came to care about a number of them, which is why I want to continue with the story. I'm particularly interested in Quaid. If I was 20 years younger...
Buy Demon Child at Amazon
Whenever my niece visits she always asks if I have anything she can read. She's a 11 and I let her take a look at Family Magic. After just a couple of pages she turned to me and said something like yeah, this is good. Which coming from her is pretty high praise (I think she's trying for the cool, uninterested persona). It will be great to have another series to share since our favorite series, The Gateway Chronicles, is wrapping up this year.
The Hayle Coven series is full of magical beings, there's the witches and the demons, but also vampires and fae. It has the magical feeling of Harry Potter. So if you are wanting a little magic this weekend, try out Family Magic for FREE at Amazon and elsewhere. There's also a free prequel novella available - Dreams and Echoes (Amazon and elsewhere) - it's pretty good, though there's no Quaid and I really like him.
It also looks like the series is 50% off at Smashwords (only TODAY - March 8)
Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small fee is earned when purchases are made at Amazon through the links above.
Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small fee is earned when purchases are made at Amazon through the links above.