pc cast kristin cast

Give Up the Night Review

Book: Give Up the Night
Author: P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Year: 2025
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Since becoming Moonstruck on her eighteenth birthday, Wren Nightingale has found herself thrust into a world filled with deception, danger, and murder. Uncovering that their magic was fractured and limited when the original Moonstruck ritual was broken by Selene, Wren is determined to find a way to restore it. But the Elementals are split into two factions – some want the ritual completed and their freedom – and others are so terrified of change that they’re willing to end Wren before she can reach the center of the island where the ritual Selene ruined can be completed.
Between his overbearing father’s arrival, Rottingham delegated him more and more responsibility, and Celeste taking a special interest in him, Lee Young has been struggling to find his own path. As much as Lee wants to take his place in the Moonstruck hierarchy, he knows something’s not right at the Academia de la Luna. He thinks if he can talk some sense into Wren and get her to return to the Academia, that everything will turn out alright.
As Wren and Lee both battle for what they believe is right, they’ll have to uncover who their true allies are…and if they’re even on the same side of this magical fight.”

Review : Dear reader, to be completely honest with you, I’m not sure how I ended up with this early copy. Not only is Give Up the Night a sequel, to a book I didn’t read, mind you, but it’s been co-authored by two people I’m familiar with; if you’ve been here for a little while, you may remember that I reviewed the first and second books in a different trilogy written by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast, and if not, you can find them here and here – as an aside, I didn’t realize the earlier of the two reviews was written all the way back in 2021 and now I must sit in shock that I’ve been receiving review copies for four years before I can continue on.

I make a point not to request sequels, and after my last two not-so-kind reviews of the Cast’s work, I’m a little more than surprised to find this book sitting in front of me. I must have made a mistake. Nonetheless, much like last year, my plans for this year include reading and reviewing every advanced copy that comes my way, so I did read Give Up the Night even though I didn’t read Draw Down the Moon, the inaugural book in the Moonstruck trilogy. To their credit, the Casts made it easy for someone to jump in without needing a total refresher of the first book – enough details were organically rehashed by the characters within the first chapter that I didn’t struggle to understand what was happening, despite jumping in at a pivotal moment. However, I do find it difficult to review a sequel without having read the first book, so this review will likely be quite short.

I find the Casts to be adequate writers, and by that I mean they do just fine if you’re not bored with a tired trope, ready for fresh material, or want a truly new, enticing, or compelling story. It’s just fine. Nothing more. I realize this is an advanced copy, but this book was riddled with errors, something I don’t tend to see in the more well put together books I receive – so that’s worth noting. Reading this book had me wondering how much might change between an advanced copy and a first edition; for example, if you have a nonbinary character, it might be worth your time as an author to ensure that you get your own character’s pronouns correct. It might even be worth your time to figure out the pronouns of the magical beings you’ve written into your novel, wouldn’t you think? Rather than jumping around confoundingly between he and she with no real clear reasoning as to why it’s jumping around – no, this is no gender fluid creature, it’s simply poor writing. The storyline matched every damn fantasy storyline you might be familiar with and that felt like an insult to the reader : young woman in a magical world finds herself bestowed with incredible! unbelievable! magical powers after spending time thinking something is wrong with her because her peers are developing their powers as normal while she lags behind; magical creature becomes magically attached to said young woman; young woman becomes marked as special, must go on magical quest to set things right / free everyone / do something spectacular that no one else has ever been able to do before. The “quirky” and “special” angle feels wildly overplayed – I can think of four books without even trying that fit the same mold. It’s overdone.

Lastly, I did find the majority of Give Up the Night to be fairly compelling, inasmuch that I continued to turn pages for a while before I got bored. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a book doesn’t have to be well written to be compelling. Poorly written books with compelling storylines still turn pages. As we neared the ending of this book, however, things took a turn. The clear-cut narrative turned muddled, the geography became redundant, and the quest the characters found themselves on turned on it’s head in a way that made no clear sense. It felt like writing for the sake of wrapping up a book with a wild and crazy twist, not like something necessary to the storytelling at all. It was all a ploy to introduce book 3, which is fine, but not for me. Anyway, like I said…this book was fine. No more.

Advice : If you’re familiar with the Casts’ work already and enjoy it, I’m sure you’ll enjoy Give Up the Night. If you’re not or you’re looking for something that doesn’t read like a watered down Fourth Wing…try again. This one won’t be for you.

Omens Bite Review

Book: Omens Bite
Author: PC Cast and Kristin Cast
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Year: 2022
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis: “Something wicked this way comes…
Twin sisters, Mercy and Hunter are witches, descendants of the Goode family of witches. After the murder of their mother at the hands of a foul demon, they have become the protectors of the Gates to different underworlds — ancient portals between their world and realms where mythology rules and the darkest of creatures exist.
The problem is that the Goode sisters have split from each other. Grief and anger have torn them apart, driving Mercy to save the cursed Gates on her own and Hunter in the arms of a dangerous goddess. And when Mercy shifts her focus to the Egyptian Gate and Khenti, the guardian of its Underworld, little does she know that her connection to him will land her in the kind of trouble that only Hunter can save her from.
When it comes to breaking the curse, Mercy and Hunter’s bonds are put to the ultimate test.”

Review: You may remember when, back in April 2021, I reviewed the first book in this trilogy “Spells Trouble”. I gave the first book in the series a 2 out of 5 stars and felt certain that after my fairly scathing review I would not be granted the opportunity to read the second book, but I have been proven wrong. As you may have noticed, I gave the second book a slightly higher review and despite the glaring grammar choices in the title of the book, I do think it deserves the 1/2 point boost. The first book left us with a cliffhanger that genuinely did make me curious about the second book – as a good cliffhanger should do! The second book has done the same to set up the third and in that regard, the Cast family does a good job of priming their readers for their upcoming creations. The writing was less disjointed this time around, as well, which was a pleasant surprise. Where the first book felt like a rough first draft, the second feels a bit more polished and thought out. They’ve begun to flesh out the characters in a way that’s working for the story and there’s more depth this time around.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fluffy piece of YA fiction that doesn’t challenge the reader on any level, but I think it’s worth noting that the writing has indeed improved from the first to the second book and one can only hope that trend will continue with the third.
I was in the bookstore the other day, browsing the YA section to see which of my ARCs have been published, when I stumbled upon what I can only refer to as a trove of books written by PC and Kristin Cast. This is not their first rodeo. Imagine my surprise! They have been in the writing game for quite a number of years, and frankly you would never know it. The storytelling is weak, at best, throughout much of the book as it was in the first, and while it’s compelling (and I think at this point I’ve established that I think a book can be compelling without being well written), it’s not well written. Need I say more than to point out the lack of apostrophe in the title? Omen’s Bite. Omens Bite. One has to wonder where the publisher is in all of this.

Advice: The fact that you have to read the first book in order to understand the second is a big deterrent in my advice here, because I stand by my first review: the first book is not worth the read. Despite the writing taking a turn for the better with the second, I still recommend that you pass this one up in favor of better writing and more interesting storylines. I, however, am a sucker for a cliffhanger and will be curious to see if next year I get the opportunity to review the third book. I will obviously keep you posted.

Spells Trouble Review

Book: Spells Trouble
Author: PC Cast and Kristin Cast
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Year: 2021
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Hunter and Mercy Goode are twin witches, direct descendants of the founder of their town of Goodeville. As their ancestors have done before them, it is now time for the twins to learn what it means to be Gatekeepers – the protectors of the Gates to different underworlds, ancient portals between their world and realms where mythology rules and nightmares come to life.
When their mother becomes the first victim in a string of murders, the devastated sisters vow to avenge her death. But it will take more than magic to rein in the ancient mythological monsters who’ve infected their peaceful town.
Now Hunter and Mercy must come together and accept their destiny or risk being separated for good.

Review: Spells Trouble is, in a word, disappointing. I was so excited to get an ARC that came as a package – it delivered with a notebook, candles, a crystal, a map of the town of Goodeville, and the book. How cute is that? That was likely the best part of the entire experience reading this book. I can appreciate the thought that went into the ARC package, especially when most ARCs come alone and I feel lucky to get a piece of paper with a few more details in the envelope when I receive them. But, if you’re going to put this much thought and effort into the ARC package, surely there was room for more thought and effort in the execution of the book. I couldn’t help but wonder, as I read through, how this ever got past an editor. There were plot holes, to say the least, the character development was flat and stale, the conversation was laughable, and there were so many instances where it felt impossible to follow what was happening that it’s almost a wonder I managed to finish the book at all.

Don’t get me wrong, the concept is compelling especially in the realm of YA fiction, but this should have been a first draft. It would have made for an awesome first draft! The execution is poor. There’s an instance where a character’s outfit changes mid chapter, mid scene – after having made a point of mentioning their dress just paragraphs earlier, suddenly we find this character wiping her hands on her jeans. The writing feels…off. There’s mention of someone’s jean skirt but it’s written multiple times as a ‘jeans skirt’. My partner suggested that this could be a regional thing, but Spells Trouble is set in Illinois and I’ve lived in that part of the country, it’s not regional. It’s poor writing. I can only assume we learn Hunter’s best friend, Jax, has the last name of Ashley at the beginning of the book (I don’t remember reading that, it’s entirely possible I did and it didn’t stick), because somewhere around 3/4 of the way through the book he’s referred to as Ashley with zero explanation and it’s never mentioned again. Poor writing.

I also want to talk about how overdone and tired the Salem witch trial genealogy trope is. Surely we can come up with better examples? The witch trials of Salem were such a small part of American history, let alone world wide history. Witch trials happened all over the world and yet we almost exclusively find fiction related to Salem. A teensy bit more research could have made this a more compelling read. I’m so sick of seeing books, tv shows, and movies that focus completely on Salem and disregard other places in which hundreds of people were accused, convicted, and killed for witchcraft. For a city who convicted 20 people of witchcraft, it’s hard to see why it continues to hold the spotlight during a portion of history in which some 12,000 people were convicted. And yet, here we are again.

There are a few steamier scenes for a YA novel, so I would put this more in the arena of a high school read, but the writing reflects more of a middle school / elementary school read. There are graphic scenes of violence that I would not recommend for anyone under high school age or anyone who might be sensitive to things of that nature as well, but again, the writing reflects a much younger audience. Like I said, poor writing, and I’ll add poor editing to boot. There are so many things about this book that frustrate me. My frustration largely resides with the potential this book had. It could have been so good, it could have been done so much better, it should have been edited so much better, but it’s mediocre at best. I struggled between giving this a 2 and a 2.5 but ultimately I landed on a 2 because It wasn’t good enough to hit a 50% in my book. I can’t say it enough, it felt like a first draft. I know ARCs are often incomplete, still lacking a final touch of editing, but this goes so far beyond a final touch. This book requires several more rounds of writing, editing, and rewriting. Sigh.

Advice: Steer clear of this one. It’s genuinely not worth it and that’s about all I have to say on that.