Title: Hex Hall (Hex Hall #1), Raising Demons (Hex
Hall #2), Spell Bound (Hex Hall #3)
Author: Rachel Hawkins
Publisher: Hyperion, Simon & Schuster Children’s
Publishing Date: February 2011, March 2011, March 2012
Length: 352 pages, 359 pages, 336 pages
Keywords: YA fiction, romance, warlocks, witches,
vampires, fairies, shape shifters, boarding school
Source: Bought, For Review
Three years
ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It's gotten her into a few
scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting
Sophie's estranged father--an elusive European warlock--only when necessary.
But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone
horribly wrong, it's her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an
isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and
shapeshifters.
By the end of her first day
among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies
who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy
tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and
only vampire student on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious
predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one
suspect.
As a series of
blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest
threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium,
especially her.
HEX HALL,
RAISING DEMONS and SPELLBOUND belong to an original series of an imaginative
world building, boarding school setting filled with magical beings of all kinds
that is definitely worth visiting. The story is stretched out over three
novels. Usually I write reviews for every book in a series. As the HEX HALL
series felt like one seamless and big adventure to me, because I read them all
in one sitting, I can’t but review it as a whole and wholesome good read.
What’s Hex
Hall? Hecate Hall is some kind of school to control very capable witches and
warlocks. It’s a place of order and restrictions. At the same time a chance for
the powerful teenagers to learn more about their powers and get to know other
magical beings. Important is that Hecate Hall does not only house witches and
warlocks but all kinds of inhabitants of the magic world, like shape shifters,
vampires and faeries. Bit by bit more details about these various species are
revealed.
Sophie just
wanted to do a small spell to help one of her classmates. Prom evening and a small
love spell gone wrong, catapult young witch Sophie Mercer into Hex Hall and
seal her fate. After many years of being left in the dark about essential
aspects about her family and her past, Sophie finally starts to come behind all
the mysteries and secrets that have made her always feel a bit left out.
Hecate Hall
means new friends and new chances at love. There’s Sophie’s friend Jenna, who’s
also a vampire and main suspect of the various attacks concentrated on Hex Hall
students.
Then there's Archer. The moment
she steps on Hex Hall grounds, Sophie’s thoughts almost immediately start to
circle around this good-looking boy, who always seems to have a witty retort
ready for Sophie, but who also seems to understand her better than all the
strangers passing her every day in the corridors. The problem: this boy,
Archer, is the boyfriend of school beauty Elodie.
Sophie’s and Archer’s
advances and their growing friendship made the whole Hex Hall boarding school
setting with its numerous conflicts even more appealing. His character, as other
character’s like Jenna, Elodie, Sophie’s mother and father just as another
bunch of magical creatures, has several secrets of his own. There’s more to his
person that will be revealed during the course of the story. The characters in
the HEX HALL series and the story itself might not be exceptionally surprising
and mind-blowing, but it was nice to spend time with them nevertheless.
My major
point of critique is that HEX HALL has a love triangle in it which just didn’t
work for me. I liked both boys, Cal and Archer, but somehow it didn’t feel
necessary to test Sophie’s relationships and emotions as there was already so
much else going on in the books and there already wasn’t that much romance in
it. I would have preferred a stronger accentuation on Archer and Sophie and
them being together, working things out, talking more often and a deeper
insight into Archer’s thoughts.
In HEX HALL
we’ve got a mysterious series of attacks on the kids at Hecate Hall. And from
there on the story continues to get more dark magic with RAISING DEMONS
featuring literally demonic events and SPELL BOUND culminating in one last
gruesome battle against the evil in the world, including mean teachers and
demonic creatures from hell.
There are
always new alliances to make and old as new enemies to fight which give Sophie
the opportunities to grow in character and work on her magical abilities. She
goes through a pretty strong change over the course of the three HEX HALL
novels just as her past is revealed bit by bit. With Sophie
Mercer, Rachel Hawkins, provided us with a lively and funny, very ironic, young
heroine, who tells the story from a first person narrator point of view.
Rachel’s writing is comfortable and to my joy contains several pop culture
references.
1) of
cellar duty
2) of a
ghostly cute ending
3) of an
inseparable quartet against evil
4) of a new
boarding school setting
5) of a
youthful and fun writing
4/5 **** HEX HALL series - An entirely new
boarding school, a bunch of troubled teen warlocks, witches, vampires, fairies
and shape shifters and a demonic force to fight. So magical!
HEX HALL,
RAISING DEMONS and SPELL BOUND are all part of an otherworldly boarding school
adventure. Dialogues and relationships, like the major love story, might not be
that profound and throw-you-of-your-feet surprising, yet there are a bunch of
mysteries and secrets about several characters that keep the story going and
interesting enough. It was a nice change from all the YA contemporary and
dystopian stories I’ve been into a lot lately and a series that can be read in
a short amount of time thanks to its easy writing and story flow.
* Want to
read more by Rachel Hawkins? Her new book REBEL BELLE comes out in 2013.
* Read
about how Rachel got published here and here.
* Thanks to
Simon & Schuster UK for sending me a copy of SPELL BOUND for review!
