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” and help her get more demonglass.
The hell that was described in the book isn’t the real hell but instead was a place that showed them their most hellish experience. For Archer it was his parents dying in the hands of demons, for Jenna it was her maker’s death from The Eye, and for Sophie, it was her great grandmother’s experience when she was turned into a demon. Cal’s wasn’t revealed and it was something that involved Sophie. When they got out he said that hell doesn’t only show the past but also what would happen in the future.
As they set out to go back to Grimalkin island for the big fight, Archer disappeared and this left Sophie hurt. But they had to push through and fight their way to save more innocent people from getting killed and/or possessed.
The “big fight” was disappointing in my opinion. As much as I loved the whole series, there were a lot of plot holes and anticlimactic scenes. It felt rushed, especially the confrontational scenes, it made me think that Hawkins got lazy or something. There were also questions that didn’t get answered, like Torin and Izzy’s relationship. What was up with that? Isn’t Izzy young, as in really young to be involved with Torin? And then there’s the part where Cal sacrificed his life which was a big loss. I think it was made that way to compensate for the lack of excitement on how Lara Casnoff was defeated. But it is an explanation on what Cal saw when they were leaving “hell” and didn’t have to elaborate more about his life.
I know it isn’t about the love story but even though there were lovey-dovey parts it felt short and rushed. Despite what is lacking and the pacing, I still gave this book a 4 out of 5 rating. It was still fun to read.