Jessamin left her tropical island home of Melei to attend school in the country of Albion. It’s a country full of wet, gray weather and–apparently–magic. One day Jessamin meets a handsome stranger named Finn. He’s obviously rich, definitely handsome, and absolutely someone she should not be getting to know. After one dinner, however, it’s too late. Lord Downpike, Finn’s nemesis, has seen enough and knows that if Finn has any weakness at all, it’s Jessamin.
Okay. Instalove. I HATE it. It’s just so unrealistic (and it usually feels forced). That was basically my only issue with the book, but it was such a prevalent theme that it made it hard for me to enjoy everything else that was going on. I liked Jessamin because I felt like she was a smart, plucky character, but the fact that she fell into instalove took away from that. She was too willing to do whatever Finn wanted in my opinion. Other characters…Eleanor was a really fun character and I liked that she didn’t seem to care what other people thought of her. Probably my favorite character in the whole book was Sir Bird. I just liked that the author was able to give such a clear personality to an animal.
A couple things I wish the author had spent more time on: Writing/changing magic. In the book Jessamin realizes that she can change a spell just by changing or switching around symbols. This was a very intriguing concept for me and I wish that more time had been spent on it. I would have liked to have seen Jessamin create more than just one new spell and done things with them. The second thing was the ending. It was much too abrupt with too little explanation…it’s hard to explain without giving any spoilers, but I’ll just finish by saying it felt like the author wasn’t sure how to end the book. It felt less plausible than the rest of the book, not because of what happened, but because it was poorly explained (and I might even go so far as to say poorly executed as well).
Overall, I liked the book and the characters were mostly fun. I did not care for the instalove aspect, and I wish Ms. White had spent more time on a couple of plot points, but still a good read.
Overall Rating: 3
Violence: Moderate
Sexual Content: Mild
Language: Mild
Smoking/Drinking: Moderate
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