Allure continues the story from Conjure with 14 year old Emma Guthrie having become a Hoodoo apprentice under 97-year old Gullah Miss Delia in order to not only save her twin brother Jack from the 300 year old Gullah curse called the Creep, but also to find a way to cure her boyfriend Cooper Beaumont. Time is ticking away until Cooper turns 16 and ends up swallowed whole like his father Beau did thanks to a root doctor who went searching for revenge on the Beaumont family.
Emma continues to be a determined young lady with fire and spunk and determination against all odds that seem to be stacked up against her. She has an emotional rollercoaster of a ride when new antagonists (Claude Corbeau & Taneea Branson) arrive on the scene and makes things very interesting between Cooper, Emma, and Jack as well as Miss Delia.
At one point in the story, I was absolutely rooting for Emma to walk away from the whole thing and let Cooper suffer in his misery. But, that would have been too easy and apparently Nolan has a whole lot more in store for Emma and her characters in the next book and we wouldn't have learned about yet another curse that affects the Guthrie family.
One of the things I always look for in a sequel is the continuation of the storyline without hiccups or mumbo jumbo. I look for character and relationship growths as well. Once again, Emma does not act like she's 14 years of age. She's determined to defeat her nemesis Sabina before things get ugly and out of control.
She does have a few emotions that I would be rather upset over had she just rolled over and pretended as though nothing bothers her at all. I'm still a little unsure about Jack since he's almost like a third wheel in the relationship between Cooper and Emma. I'm also not really looking forward to a quick reconciliation between Emma and Cooper no matter how much readers want it to be.
I won't tell anyone NOT to read Conjure before jumping into Allure. Although Nolan does a fairly decent job of summarizing previous events, I absolutely feel that the series SHOULD be read in order, and not skipped over for the sake of time and expediency. I know we have a pile of books to read, but that doesn't mean one should ignore the authors previous works.
A Huge Thank YOU! Goes out to Heather from Entangled who kindly provided me with an updated copy of Allure after there were certain problems with my copy I received via NetGalley. As always Heather, you are the best!
*Recvd 09/09/2013 via NetGalley* Published October 1st 2013 by Entangled: Teen
Author - Lea Nolan
Title - Allure (Hoodoo Apprentice # 2)
Publisher - Entangled Teen
Released October 1,2013
Genre - YA, Action, Adventure, Romance
Books and series like this are attractive to me. I like series but it's also good that this one can be read as stand-alone. It won't intimidate other readers who don't want to be caught up in lots of books to catch up with.
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