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When a strange girl appears, bent on revenge; demon dogs become a threat; and Jack turns into a walking skeleton; Emma has no choice but to learn hoodoo magic to undo the hex, all before summer—and her friends--are lost forever.
Type:Young Adult, Paranormal
Heat: 1.5 out of 5
Rating: 4 out of 5
Aw Conjure was such a great young adult novel and a pretty damn impressive debut by Lea Nolan. The basic gist is that twins Emmaline and Jack, along with their best friend Cooper, are spending the summer together and find themselves neck deep in a centuries old curse, or two, and fighting for their lives. There's action, mystery, some total ick you out moments and a very sweet little romance. It's an excellent ride :)
I absolutely loved Emmaline and Cooper. They're awesome young teenagers and ones I'd totally want to hang out with in real life. And the two are so sweet together. She's been crushing on him for a while now and omg if I were like half my age I'd totally have crushed on Cooper too! The boy is just too cute. I really enjoyed seeing the sweet little romance start to bloom between them. It's kept pretty PG so safer for the younger teens and anyone on up :)
I thought the storyline was pretty entertaining and rather unique. The hoodoo aspect, and Emmaline learning the rules and different spells, was really interesting. There are some crazy hold-your-breath-omg-moments along the way that would have freaked me the heck out. But these kids really held their own. There were some nice twists and surprises along the way that I so didn't see coming and you know I love that.
The "Creep" that's attacking her brother was oh so disgusting. It was excellent but omg yeah totally icked me out and put me off my cereal (which I'd made the mistake of munching on while reading). LOL. I made a lot of eeeehhhhwwwwwww girly noises on this one.
The one thing I didn't really love, and this has nothing to do with Nolan's writing, which was fantastic, but with Jack who'd gotten himself good and cursed. I'm all for sympathy for the victim, but when you start acting like a butt-faced jerk I'm good letting The Creep take your sorry self down. That's one seriously annoying teenage boy with some hardcore mood swings. ::shudder:: I'm real curious to see what happens with him next and if I'll still want to pinch the ever living tar out of him or not.
If you're looking for something a little different (or a nicely developed read you can share with your younger teens) this is definitely one to look into. I'm really looking forward to reading more from Nolan and seeing where these three friends go from here.
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Lea Nolan couldn’t read until the third grade. After a lot of hard work she finally got the hang of it and quickly learned the best way to get out of doing chores was to tell her parents she was reading. Soon she was hooked, devouring books by Roald Dahl, E.B. White, Judy Blume, C.S. Lewis, and anything with a shiny Newberry Award sticker on the cover. Books provided a portal to enchanted lands where anything was possible and characters relied on their wits to wiggle out of sticky situations.

Today, even though she’s all grown up, Lea writes the kinds of stories she sought as a teen--smart paranormals with bright heroines, crazy-hot heroes, diabolical plot twists, plus a dose of magic, a draft of romance, and a sprinkle of history. She holds degrees in history and women’s studies concentrating in public policy and spent fifteen years as a health policy analyst and researcher. She lives in Maryland with her heroically supportive husband and three clever children, who’ve figured out how to get out of doing their chores.
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