Review: Cantrip by Rebecca McKinnon

She spent the summer in The Refuge. Now, she’s come home.
Within days she realizes:

She wants back in.

Only two things stand in her way. The sister Narissa has protected for years can’t decide if she wants to go with her. And, of course, Narissa has no idea how to return to the splinter reality.

Complicating matters, Narissa discovers she can no longer avoid the problems her unexpected trip allowed her to escape.

Through it all, there’s one thing that keeps her going. She’s not the only person to have left The Refuge

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I really enjoyed Annexed, but for me, Cantrip was on a different level. That pretty much sums up how I felt about it. I think that what made me enjoy this one a bit more was that there was more confrontation, more going on so the pace grabbed me as well as everything else, whilst the first in the series mainly dealt with Narissa's difficult choice, this one dealt with her struggle to get back to the refuge, her relationship with Damon as well as reclimatising to the 'real' world, there is more going on, more emotional things that connected me to the book and characters more than Annexed did.


I want to say something, it isn't really a negative but it confused me a little - we spend all of Annexed watching Narissa struggle to get home and at the start of Cantrip she wants to go back again, it seemed like an anticlimax. It didn't particularly bother me, but I doubt I'm going to find many flaws in this book so I thought that I would point that out.


I love the relationship between Damon and Narissa and found that I liked the rleationship and the characters a little more in Cantrip than I did Annexed. Damon comes across as more caring and likeable than in Annexed and Narissa seems less perfect, which I think she needed, but they still felt like the characters that I came to know in the first book, just evolved versions of themselves. I loved that Narissa doubted herself at times and made mistakes, it made her more human.


We finally get to meet Kassandra, Narissa's mother as well as the other people in her life and WOW that girl has it tough. Her home situation is utterly crazy and at the same time totally believable. I felt like I could totally see where her morals had come from when we meet her mother and sister, which made the book more believable.


And as always, I cannot fault Rebecca McKinnon's writing, as an author she is extremely talented, she manages to pull out this sci-fi/splintered reality kind of book and make it seem less techy and more like a contemporary at times. She is an author that I could read over and over again and never bore of the writing.


Overall, a fantastic sequel, I loved Narissa and Damon and their relationship, the writing was so good and the book dealt with serious issues without being overly pressing.


Overall Rating: A-

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This book was released November 22nd as a sequel to Annexed (review here)
The first book in the series is currently free on Smashwords: HERE
I am currently hosting a giveaway for Cantrip: HERE