Series: Hex Hall

Just when Sophie learns to accept her powers and what she is, it all gets taken away from her. She finds herself defenseless and alone at the hands of her enemies. It’s not over yet! She uncovers another secret held from her and as an epic war looms ahead, will she be able to get her powers back to save everyone? Warning: Spoilers Ahead. The end of Demonglass definitely left me hanging with Sophie using the Iteneris to travel to the Brannicks. Fortunately, I’m a late bloomer with the series and I’m reading the ebook so I was able to start reading Spell Bound right away. I can’t imagine being one of those people who had to wait till the last book of the series to be released. The moment Cal told Sophie to head to the Brannicks, I already knew what that meant. Why else would her mother be in enemy territory? That answers and complicates matters more. Sophie may be together with her mother but she’s separated from her friends and other loved ones. She has no news about Jenna and what happened to her, as well as with Cal, Archer, and her father. She doesn’t know if they’re still alive, if they got away safely or where they were. After a few days with the Brannicks, Izzy hands her a report about a vampire spotted with Lord Byron and Sophie was relieved to learn that Jenna is alive and well. A few more days, Cal and Sophie’s father show up at the Brannicks and that’s where more questions were answered. Cal and Sophie had a moment and then Archer finds a way to contact her afterward. They all hatched a plan on how to defeat the Casnoffs and before they could set out and act on it, something happens. Sophie finds herself back at Hecate Hall in Grimalkin island and it seems like all students were there. She finds Jenna and Archer and wonders if Cal is on the island too. Since they were trapped in the school and suspected that the piece of the spell to summon a demon was there, they did their own investigation and tried to recover it. I wonder, how they could have possibly run around the school and do their investigations without anyone else noticing? I mean, shouldn’t the place be packed with security or magic to prevent anyone from roaming around? Anyway, since Sophie’s powers are “caged”, she relied on Elodie’s ghost to possess her and use her powers instead. It was weird in my opinion, but it works so, whatever. I’ll just skip to the near end part. Sophie got her powers back and along with her friends, traveled to Ireland where she met up with the Brannicks and her parents. They had to get demonglass from hell and though she planned to get them alone, her plan to sneak out while everyone else was still sleeping failed. In the end, Jenna, Archer, and Cal went with her to “hell” Read more

Demonglass is where things get more interesting. I liked this more than the first book. A lot of things happened and the romance part made me giddy. Secrets were also revealed, things I didn’t expect. Read my review after the jump. Beware, spoilers ahead. After finding out that she was descended from the first demon, Sophie decided to go through the Removal process in fear of snapping and hurting anyone/everyone she ever cared for. But everyone discourages her from going through with it. Her father suggested that she goes with him in the summer to learn more about being a demon and maybe afterward she’ll change her mind. She agreed to go to London with her father with the condition that Jenna would go with them too. Aside from Jenna, Cal was also asked to go with them so they’d get to know each other better. It was also revealed that she’s betrothed to Cal, since she dislikes the idea of being paired off like that, she informed him that it will never happen. Upon their arrival to Thorne Abbey, they were welcomed by some of the other council members and a couple of teenagers like them who Sophie identified as demons right away. This came as a shock to her because she thought that the only demons left were her and her dad. This is what they try to uncover in this story, who is behind the summoning and turning people into demons. Still wondering about Archer and his lies, Sophie tries to learn more about her origins with the help of the teen demons and then her father. She uncovers more information about their ancestors and helps her father investigate about the “demons rising”. When Archer came back to Sophie’s life, he helped her uncover more secrets, told her about his association with The Eye, and showed her what he discovered while he was in Grimalkin Island. She realizes she’s still in love with him and it seems like he is too, risking his life just to be with her. Sophie feels conflicted because of Cal, they have grown closer together in the past weeks that they’re together in Thorne Abbey, but decides that her feelings for him are of a close friend or a brother. [Which is kinda sad because I was rooting for him. 🙁 ] Things got exciting when Sophie and her dad are almost getting to the bottom of things. There was a commotion and Sophie was found saving Archer’s life. She and her father were sentenced to the Removal ritual while Archer was sentenced to death. They were locked in the dungeon waiting for their sentences to be served. Sophie’s father was first, and when he was returned, weak and covered with the ritual’s marking, Sophie was taken next. On their way to the chamber, she heard another commotion somewhere in the house and got away. She ran and stumbled upon Cal, who came back because of a suspicion. Sophie begged him to save her father Read more

One of my new year’s resolution is to read more books but every month, I fail to read anything. A few weeks back I started reading Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins. It had an interesting plot and once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down. One way a fan described the book is it’s like Harry Potter and Mean Girls got married and had a kid. The school and the classes it offered is similar with Hogwarts in some ways, even some parts of the story reminded me of Chamber of Secrets. Spoilers ahead. The story revolves around Sophie and finding the truth about her origin. Her powers are nothing like any ordinary witch, whether white or dark. She grew with a normal mother who separated with her father when she found out that he was a warlock. While in Hecate Hall, Sophie finds out that her absentee father is the head of the Council, and some of the students do not like her because of it. On her first day, she meets the gorgeous Archer Cross, who made fun of her magic skills when she failed to cast a spell on a wolf who was about to attack her. Sophie develops a crush on him but turns out he’s dating Elodie, a witch who dislikes her. Fate seems to bring them closer to each other like she was paired with him in Defense class, and when Sophie was sent to cellar duty [detention] for the whole semester, Archer “defended her honor” and got sent there as well. They became close after a while, and Sophie considered themselves to be good friends. Sophie’s roommate Jenna is the first and only vampire that was allowed to attend Hecate Hall. Jenna was accused of killing Holly, her former roommate and former girlfriend of Archer, and was also accused when Chaston and Anna were attacked. But Sophie was convinced that she had nothing to do with it and was being framed. This was part of the mystery of the story. Elodie, Chaston, and Anna are the mean girls of the story. They are the only dark witches in school and are in a coven. They have been trying to recruit Sophie to be part of it since she’s listed as another dark witch. Apparently, the coven needs a fourth member for a spell they’re trying to do, and Holly used to be their fourth. It was rumored that their coven is trying to summon a demon, hence needing four members for the spell to work. Of course, they denied the rumors. Mrs. Casnoff is the head of the school. At first, she reminded me of Dumbledore, she knew the secrets about Sophie’s father’s side of the family. The book is easy to read, quick to finish, although it took me more or less 5 days to finish it. While in the middle of reading, I didn’t jump into conclusions unlike how I usually am with other stories. I just waited for things to happen Read more