Spellbound /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Eleven-year-old Olive finds herself drawn to the grimoire of the witches who built her house and tries to use its spells to uncover the house's magic and control the cats themselves, but the book is more wicked than it seems.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

School Library Journal Review

Gr 4-6-In Jacqueline West's sequel (2011) to The Shadows (2010, both Dial), we rejoin Olive and the three eccentric talking cats that live in her enchanted Victorian house. Olive has broken the magical spectacles that allowed her to enter the paintings that filled her mysterious new home. Now she can only visit her friend Morton, trapped in the paintings, with the reluctant assistance of the cats. Olive hopes that finding the previous owners' spell book, or grimoire, will help her set Morton free. Rutherford Dewey, the new neighbor, could be either friend or foe, a theme present in the first book as well. Lexy Fridell provides an array of intriguing and fun voices. Rutherford, in particular, has a perfect nasal tone and, along with the peculiar cats, provides much of the humor that helps balance the suspenseful story.-April Mazza, Wayland Public Library, MA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Horn Book Review

Olive's quest to free Morton from Elsewhere, located inside the paintings in Olive's house, involves a search for a spell book and family connections obscured by time. Though this installment gives Olive less Elsewhere time than The Shadows, it generates plenty of magical creepiness by exploring the idiosyncrasies of the house--and the neighbors. Shadowy (but not scary) black-and-white illustrations enhance the mystery. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

The second installment of The Books of Elsewhere (The Shadows, 2010) is a by-the-book fantasy follow-up.Olive has yet to find a solution to the last plot thread left over from the first volumeMorton is trapped, unable to rejoin the world outside of the McMartins' enchanted paintings. Meanwhile, the Linden Street setting is enriched through greater focus on Olive's neighbors, especially new kid Rutherford Dewey. When Olive inexplicitly blurts out the McMartin family's magical secret to Rutherford, he educates her on witches' grimoires. Olive is sure that Aldous McMartin's spellbook holds the key to helping Morton, despite her suspicions about Rutherfordhe seems to know too muchand the fact that she'd be playing with an evil wizard's spellbook. The ancient McMartin grimoire is as old as the plot device of the untrustworthy magical object. Furthermore, Olive often acts as a slave to plot contrivances rather than as a character. The characters do not trust each other enough to communicate basic information, leading to arbitrary misunderstandings cleared up just in time for a climax that resolves little. Fortunately, zany cat Harvey's multiple characters and Rutherford's set of quirks help pull the story out of Olive's pace-slowing introspection.Definitely the middle of the story, designed to set up further conflicts and sequels for readers already invested in the series. (Fantasy. 9-12)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Jacqueline West was born in Red Wing, Minnesota on December 29, 1979. She received a BM in voice performance with a minor in English from the University of Wisconsin. Her works include the Books of Elsewhere series and Cherma, a series of poems about Wisconsin's Bohemian immigrants. Her poetry has appeared in several print and online publications. She won the 2008 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize for poetry.

(Bowker Author Biography)