Once a Witch -- Carolyn MacCullough

On the Samhain night that Tamsin is born, her grandmother makes this pronouncement:

"Your daughter will be one of the most powerful we have ever seen in this family.  She will be a beacon for us all."

Then began the wait to see how her supposedly enormous powers would manifest.  It went on.  And on. 

Years later, everyone has pretty much thrown in the towel, because Tamsin is seventeen years old, and there's no discernible difference between her and most of the rest of the world's population.  So it shouldn't be all that surprising that she's looking forward to head back to boarding school in New York City where she actually fits in than spend any more time at home where everyone and everything she sees is a constant reminder about how much of a disappointment she is to her family.  Not to mention how she compares to her perfect, beautiful, powerfully Talented (and powerfully bitchy) older sister.

So it's easy to forgive her when she doesn't correct the handsome young (and British!) NYU professor when he mistakes her for her older sister.  And it's easy to forgive her when she promises to Find (with her nonexistent Talent) his precious family heirloom.  Because it's nice to feel impressive and important and Talented, even if it's only by mistake.

But sometimes handsome young NYU professors (even the ones with plummy accents!) are more than they appear.  And sometimes they're the beginning of a whole lot of trouble.

Well.  That intro got away from me.  And I didn't even mention Tamsin's childhood friend who's just come back to town, ten years older and ten years hotter.  (See how I worked that in there?  Yeah, I rule.)

So, Once a Witchmade me think of a few other books.  I'll tell you which ones I thought of and why, but, to avoid spoilers, I won't tell you whether or not I was right:  The prologue made me wonder if Tamsin's older sister had pulled a Charmed Life-style switcheroo and a scene towards the middle made me wonder if there was going to be a Breaking Dawn-style revelation.

I really enjoyed this one.  It wasn't because it brought me somewhere new -- main character/younger sibling who Feels Like An Outcast in a really Tight-Knit, Quirky Family, who is admired For Being Who She Is by an Extremely Eligible Young Man and who May Turn Out To Be The Beacon That Everyone Had Hoped For is a pretty standard outline -- but there's time travel and romance and family secrets and lots of banter and not a few surprises (one of my favorites being the origins of Tamsin's name), and so it's a perfectly enjoyable, mostly fluffy read. 

While it doesn't have the epic, grand-scale feel of the Mortal Instruments series, it's clearly the first of at least a few and there were intimations of Some Possibly Large Battles in the future.  It's closer to the Meg Cabot end of the spectrum of urban fantasy than the Jim Butcher end, but it's not completely girly, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that it'll probably go over well with readers looking for a light, fast-paced read with romance and action and magic, starring a narrator who wouldn't be out of place in a chick-lit novel.

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Book source:  ARC from the publisher.  All quotes are from the ARC, and therefore may be different in the finished copy.

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Comments

[Elizabeth]

If this reminded you even the tiniest bit of Charmed Life I must go buy it immediately.

[Leila]

Only because early on CHARMED LIFE SPOILER I wondered if Rowena could have swiped Tamsin's powers END CHARMED LIFE SPOILER.

So it really wasn's DWJish at all, it was just that stray thought. And I may have just had Charmed Life on the brain anyway, as I have a copy on my bedside table at the moment.

[tanita]

This surprised the heck out of me -- it started quietly and I thought, "Okay." And then it picked up pace, and just bowled me over. Thanks for posting about it; I'm really behind in reviewing quite a few things, and this one was a good one.

[rtboyce]

I really like the idea of an "urban fantasy" continuum with Once a Witch at the light end and the Dresden Files at the gritty end. Would you mind plotting a few more points on it? I have been enjoying Kim Harrison, because I find Rachel Morgan so enjoyable, and Jim Butcher less so, because Harry Dresden is always grouchy. And the Anita Blake vampire hunter books are too grim for me. So, I suppose I prefer the mid-to-lighter end.

[MIss Print]

I love this book to pieces AND I also love the author to death besides *stops gushing*. It reminded me a lot of Graceling because of the symmetry between a person's Grace/Talent.

[Leila]

Rtboyce: Fun! I almost think it might have to be a web -- I'll play with it today.