But they didn't win. Slowly but surely they were pushed back until, to everyone's surprise, they surrendered and were executed. Leaving behind their 5 children - protected by a curse that prevented them from being harmed or separated, the witch government was left with the Moonset's children to raise
Which is where we come in, following Justin, Malcolm, Jenna, Cole and Bailey, the children of the hated Moonset, moved from place to place and held by witch guardians who can barely hide their disdain for the troublesome teens. Until the latest move to a town where it all began - a town with a warlock lurking in the shadows, demanding the Moonset children.
Are the teens there as bait? Or as collateral damage and quiet removal?
Look at that synopsis and drool, folks. A secret magical society with some excellent world building on the nature and workings of magic, hints of far more to come. A coven gone to the dark side and executed, their children bonding together both through unknown magic and desperate self-preservation in a society that is determined to hold them responsible for their parents' crimes. Their close bonds, their anger, their trust issues and their desire for acceptance all at war, overlaid with a dark plot to try and draw them into the same dark side their parents embraced. But then, a new thread to the mystery - maybe their parents were not so simple as was previously suggested...
Seriously, how could you not write an awesome story with this as its seed? It's a wonderfully imaginative gift, there's so much there, there's essences of originality, compelling hooks for a whole story and so many wonderful things to explore. How could this book not be awesome?
No, really... how could you not write an excellent book with this?
That isn't a rhetorical question. Because I'm at a loss how such a wonderful world, setting and idea could produce this rather dull book. It's like seeing someone take a wonderful block of gold veined marble and making door stops with it.
Primarily, this is because of the writing. It's very overwritten, very over descriptive and metaphors and similes have been crammed in like commuters in a London Tube at rush hour. And even less smoothly than that one. If you cut out the excess verbiage this book could have been half as long and much faster moving; we don't need everything described in such vivid and exhaustive detail - it doesn't set the scene, it distracts from it and focuses on irrelevant minutia. Like the travelling, we're treated to several paragraphs of Justin wondering whether they're in New York state - yes, you are, now move on! And not only do we have a lot of "tell" rather than "show" but sometimes the tell is used to try and overwhelm the show. Like Justin muses how he's disturbed at how many of their days end with bandages and bleach (i.e. they get hurt a lot) and we see this by... it never happening again the whole book. Or happening again before this incident either. In fact, since before this they were just moved around while Jenna got them expelled, I fail to see why it was a major factor before.
Sometimes the writing even destroys the mood - like describing a Wraith in wonderfully creepy terms and then having him have a voice that hisses like a deflating tire. Really? Because I was with your cinder crackling, bone crunching, sibilant wraith, only now he's deflating like some kind of spooky Michelin man. Less is more sometimes. Or there's similes that are just so over the top that the scene is ruined by my mad cackling, example:
"Cut the wraith down like it was the first born son, and this was a plague."
There's no way the author wrote that line with a straight face.
The book is also hopelessly focused on one character - Justin. No-one else is explored with any great depth, no relationships are truly developed and explained or shown. Everything is from Justin's viewpoint and most of that contains a lot of telling, a lot of monologuing and a lot of angst. It doesn't help that's he's more than a little self-absorbed. He thinks of his siblings - but only in the shallowest ways and usually in terms of protecting them or, more often, preventing them getting in trouble. He doesn't have any kind of friendship with them or even any kind of relationship - they're burdens to control and irritations to endure.
