Review: UNDER A SPELL

Under a Spell
Written by Hannah Jayne
Published by Kensington Books
August 2013
Mass Market Paperback, 416 pages

I have often wondered what it would be like to go back to high school. The campus, the people who work there, the students who are too cool for school. In Hannah Jayne’s Under a Spell, Sophie Lawson’s job sends her back to her alma mater to look for a secret coven of witches.

Sophie works for the UDA – The Underworld Detection Agency – in San Francisco. Basically, if things go wrong and it appears that something supernatural is involved, they get called in. When a girl goes missing from Sophie’s high school, her boss recruits her and her handler, Will, to pose as substitute teachers to do some investigation for a new secret coven of witches. This is not the ideal job in Sophie’s mind; she hated high school and was the awkward, antisocial kid who was bullied. At first she thinks it’s just girls being girls (it’s an all girls school), but the more she and Will discover, they start to believe there might be something to this secret club. Her bias against the different stereotypes clouds her judgement, but in the end they make a discovery that shocks them all.

This is the fifth book of the Underworld Detection Agency Chronicles. So I was having to play a quick catch up to know the characters. Luckily Jayne made that a fairly easy task with names and positions within the agency. I’m always nervous picking up a book that’s not the first of a series. I understand that the author will do some introductions but not spend too much time so they can jump into the story. And this book definitely does that. I didn’t mind, though, because I was instantly pulled into Sophie’s world, her task, and her emotions over having to return to her dreaded high school.

The book is fast paced and you have to be focused just enough to stay with the story. It’s not to hard to follow. I felt it made sense, nothing that seemed too odd (for looking for witches in high school, completely normal, right?). Twists were welcome, not obvious but also not completely out of left field.

However, my distraction was Sophie’s mind and since I have not read Jayne’s other UDA books, I don’t know if this normal for Sophie. While she was focused on her job she was also all over the place. Some clue would pop up and like a child, that was all she would focus on, even if there was nothing to it. Or if something that was important was pointed out to her by her partner, Will, she blew him off because “what did he know” or because she did have her already established bias. There were points when I really just wanted to slap some sense into her, or at least get her to focus.

While it seems Sophie is good at her job, I think she’d be better with more focus. But I don’t buy it. There probably could have also been a little more depth into the story, but I’m not sure how much. It’s pretty decent as it is. I did like that the climax and conclusion was allowed to breathe through the end of book instead of abruptly ending. I felt there was closure on this story as the final page jumped into what I assume would be the next book.

Overall, Under a Spell was a fun quick trip back to high school, even if Sophie didn’t feel that way.