Title: Audrey’s Guide
to Witchcraft
Series: Audrey’s
Guide, #1
Author: Jody
Gehrman
Publisher: Magic
Genie Books
Publication Date: June
30, 2012
Genre: Young
Adult
Reviewed by: Ellen
Fritz
Ellen’s rating: 5/5
SUMMARY
Falling in Love, baking a magical cake,
fighting an evil necromancer—it’s all in a day’s work for Audrey Oliver,
seventeen-year-old witch-in-training.
When her mother goes missing and her twenty-one-year-old witchy cousin shows up out of the blue, Audrey knows something’s gone horribly, dangerously wrong. Now it’s up to her to get her own magical powers up to speed before everyone she loves is destroyed by the sorcerer intricately connected to her mother’s secret past.
When her mother goes missing and her twenty-one-year-old witchy cousin shows up out of the blue, Audrey knows something’s gone horribly, dangerously wrong. Now it’s up to her to get her own magical powers up to speed before everyone she loves is destroyed by the sorcerer intricately connected to her mother’s secret past.
REVIEW
I read through Audrey's
Guide to Witchcraft in no time at all and enjoyed every moment of it. When
Audrey sees the face of a stranger in a cake and inflicts damage on the popular
girl, Dallas, without so much as lifting a finger, she knows that something weird
is going on. Add to this that her so-called cousin, Sadie, arrives to babysit
her and her sister Meg while her mother is off on a mysterious quest, and
Audrey's life seems to be in for a drastic change.
This comfortably-paced, easy-to-read book gave me a
new respect for an author who very obviously took the trouble to produce a
neatly-written story with a slightly different approach to witches, and the
paranormal in general. Although the author takes her time with world building
and plot development, things are constantly happening, thus keeping the story
interesting. Towards the end the suspense gets almost unbearable as lives are
in danger and horrible truths are uncovered.
The characters are realistic and well-developed. While
Meg, Audrey's sister, is the volatile and artistic one, Audrey is the quieter
sister who just wants to get on with learning to do magic and helping their
mother. If one looks at her notebook, however, it is clear that she has an
incredible sense of humor.
How to Be a Boy-Repeller
1. Have your gorgeous, charismatic sister host a party
showcasing her superior social skills in glaringly obvious ways. Ideally said
sister will rock the house as lead singer in hot girl band with suggestive name.
2. Be incredibly awkward and antisocial at said party.
Wear nondescript clothing and attempt to pass as wallpaper.
3. Feel like a social midget when said sister stuns
everyone with rocker-girl charm.
4. Meet tantalizing boy and immediately blame him for
everything going wrong in your life, including your missing mother.
5. Run away and barricade self in room.
Her friend, Bridget, is hilariously funny at times and
brings another welcome dash of humor to the story. Then there is the really hot
guy, Julian, who seems to have infinite patience with Audrey's strangeness and
need for secrecy. The antagonist in this book appears to be a truly evil person
and yet, in the end, I was left wondering whether he is really beyond
redemption.
The romance in this book is tender and not at all
overdone. As a person who loves and appreciates well-written dialogue, I found
the dialogue - as well as Audrey's inner dialogue - lively, quirky and highly
stimulating.
Audrey's Guide to Witchcraft is a heartwarming story that will keep you turning the pages. I highly
recommend this book to readers of all ages and give it an ecstatic five-star
thumbs up!
READ more REVIEWS
Audrey’s Guide to Witchcraft by Jody Gehrman has 135
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PURCHASE LINKS
ABOUT the AUTHOR
Jody Gehrman is the author of eight novels and
numerous plays. Audrey's Guide to Black Magic is her latest release, the sequel
to Audrey's Guide to Witchcraft. Her other Young Adult novels include Babe in
Boyland, Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty, and Triple Shot Bettys in Love,
(Penguin's Dial Books). Babe in Boyland won the International Reading
Association Teen Choice Award and has recently been optioned by the Disney
Channel. Her adult novels are Notes from the Backseat, Tart, and Summer in the
Land of Skin (Red Dress Ink). Her plays have been produced in Ashland, New
York, San Francisco, Chicago and L.A. She and her partner David Wolf won the
New Generation Playwrights Award for their one-act, Jake Savage, Jungle P.I.
She is a professor of English at Mendocino College.
AUTHOR LINKS
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