The Broken Spell

Erika McGann’s first book The Demon Notebook attracted good reviews and was a highly entertaining and convincing portrait of girls’ friendship against a background of spells and magic. For all its humour, it built to a thoroughly scary climax.

In this the sequel, she takes the action and moves it up a notch so that although there’s still the same snappy dialogue and a good many laughs, this feels a much darker read.

The five girls, Jenny, Rachel, Adie, Grace and Una, are now being tutored in the supernatural by Mrs Quinlan and Ms Lemon, familiar also from The Demon Notebook.  To their disappointment however, their witchcraft studies are duller than the dullest geography lesson. The arrival of a new teacher at school, the gorgeous Ms Gold, only emphasises the tedium: under Ms Gold, geography becomes the highlight of the school week. You’d definitely need special powers to make that happen and, sure enough, Ms Gold is soon tempting the girls to attempt some extra-curricular magic with her.

There’s history between the three older women, who were friends at school before going their very separate ways. As the story unfolds, the relationship between the girls comes under pressure too and it becomes something of a study in betrayal, the kind that comes when you are working out who you are, and whereabouts you fit in your social hierarchy. Despite the magical setting this will be painfully familiar to every fourteen-year old girl.

All of this is neatly woven into the plot which concerns a terrifying figure from the past making a sudden appearance in the present.  McGann clearly knows her demonology, and there are some genuinely scary scenes in the book.  Although it ends on a lighter note with peace and harmony restored, it might well cause the more sensitive reader sleepless nights. There’s a fair amount of time travel in the story which might not bear too close an examination, but all in all this is a very exciting read, that offers young readers something to think about as well as something to make them jump.