Sweep

There will be series spoilers in this review.  If you don't like it... Eat a fish.

When I was younger, I liked vampires and witches and teen-romance-ish novels.  I was completely in love with Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' books. Into my teenage year, my friend, Gretchen, introduced the series Sweep by Cate Tiernan which began several things.  First, it along with Circle of Three by Isobel Bird began my long time interest in Wicca, paganism, and the practiced of magic in the real world.  Second, it kick-started whatever part of my brain was wired for "girlie" stuff, like an interest in romance novels.  I like to think that the fact that both interests were born from the same source makes me an interesting kid, but I'm probably wrong.

So... Sweep is a fifteen-book long FICTIONAL series about a girl named Morgan Rowlands who discovers that she's a descendant of a long line of powerful witches and must then battle dark and sinister forces of magick.  She is introduced to magick by the series' Edward Cullen, Cal Blaire.  As in, he's handsome with dark hair and golden eyes.  However, things are not all as they seem when the International Council of Magick sends a Seeker, Hunter Niall (Cal's half-brother), to stop Cal and his mother from using dark magick.  Yeah, that's right... that totally perfect boy that she spends the first books in love with?  He might be evil.

Not vanilla evil, "Oh I'm a monster who has no soul even though I feel guilty for everything" Edward Cullen evil, but genuinely deep-down evil.  Evil enough to potentially kill her.  It makes the whole series rather interesting.

More interesting is the fact that Cate Tiernan does an excellent job of blending fantasy with reality.  If I hadn't been looking up everything I could about Wicca shortly after starting the book, I never would've known that the idea of blood witches and Seven Great Clans is laughable at best.  You get absorbed into her world and when you find out that magick doesn't work the way described in the books, it's actually quite sad.

However, that doesn't mean the book doesn't come with its flaws.  I'm pretty sure if I ran a Mary Sue Litmus Test for Morgan Rowlands, the score would be undeniably high.  Even though the author does go a long way towards rounding the character out.  Morgan Rowlands makes mistakes.  She makes a lot of mistakes and does a ton of morally questionable things.  At one point she even almost kills someone, not to mention the rift she creates between herself and her friends and herself and her family.  Yes she's smart and she get's good grades, but she often talks about her physical flaws like the fact that she has a flat chest and doesn't even wear a bra or the fact that she things her nose is too strong.  And those good grades?  In the first books, at least, I read a lot about her studying and wishing she could play with magic instead.  She talks about her calculus and physics classes as well as being on the Math Club.  This girl isn't just your typical vanilla high school girl, but a nerd of the worst kind and she lets you know it.

She even mentions that she likes equations because they feel magical to her the way everything fits in its own right place.  Being a person who has always been able to to math despite the fact that I don't love it, I can tell you that when an equation works out right, the world does seem to have some sort of peace or balance.  I just liked the touch.

What didn't I like about this series?  Well, The last book really disappointed me.  It changes main characters to Morgan's daughter and does a number of other things I don't particularly like.  Also, Morgan's origins seem to get more and more twisted through the books to the point where I want to punch the author.  Oh, she's Morgan Rowlands, a bit of a weirdo in her family.  No, she's Morgan Rowlands, and she's adopted.  No, her birth parents are dead, the Rowlands family adopted her after that.  No, her mother is dead and her   birth father killed her mother...  UGH!!!

It was like reading a soap opera.  Every time things seemed to settle, more drama was right around the other corner.  The final book, though, was the worst.  

If you like romance and magic, this is the book series for you.  It never get overly dirty and the characters do act like real teens most of the time.  However, if you don't really like the romance angle or you don't like the idea of Wicca, don't touch this book.  It's fun, but the soap opera stuff can get tedious.  Then again, the books are fairly short and you can read them like nothing at all.  

Since Twilight became a huge thing, like the books of L.J. Smith, these books are being re-released in three-book omnibuses.  That means you could probably find them in any library or book store.  These books are like suckers; don't waste your money on them, but enjoy them none-the-less.  

Sweet Dreams!