Ashford, Barbara: Spellcast
Spellcast (2011)
Written by: Barbara Ashford
Genre: Modern Romantic Fantasy
Pages: 433 (Mass Market Paperback)
Why I Read It: I actually had the honor of beta-reading this novel before Ashford turned this into her editor. Both of us come from the Odyssey Writer's Workshop, and even though we attended the workshop is different years, we'd ended up in an online critique group together, which allowed me to read this book and offer feedback. If you look in the acknowledgements, you'll find my name! At any rate, I couldn't wait to buy the final copy of the book to see what Ashford ended up with after all of the feedback, so I settled into an interesting experience: not quite a brand-new read, but not quite a re-read either.
The premise: ganked from the author's website: Maggie Graham is having a very bad day. First, she loses her job. Then the bathroom ceiling in her Brooklyn apartment collapses. That’s when Maggie decides she needs to get out of town. A weekend in Vermont seems like the perfect getaway.
When she stumbles on the Crossroads Theatre, reviving her acting career is the last thing on her mind, but a week later, she’s back in summer stock at a theatre unlike any she’s ever known.
Director Rowan Mackenzie is even odder than the collection of misfits that comprise the cast. What kind of director casts people in the roles they need? And never leaves the grounds of the theatre? And possesses the power to transform a train wreck of a show into a magical experience for cast and audience alike?
There’s a secret at the Crossroads, and Maggie is determined to uncover it before summer’s end -- if she can prevent her mother from discovering her whereabouts, deal with the staff’s efforts to thwart her, and avoid falling prey to Rowan Mackenzie’s charm. She never imagines that she will uncover secrets about her past that will change her life -- and Rowan’s -- forever.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Nay. I want too many people to read this book, which means I want everyone to be able to read the full review without repercussion of spoilers, so if you want to read the full review, you're safe. Otherwise, if you're utterly paranoid or in a hurry, skip to "My Rating" and you'll be fine.
It's an odd thing to read a published book that you've already read pre-publication. As excited as I was for Spellcast to hit the shelves, I think that's why I waited a few months to read it. Let's be honest: once you've read something, you're not in a huge hurry to read it again, are you? And then there's the curious fear that what if the author hated your suggestions during the crit process and didn't put a single lick of them to use? I know that's rather self-serving, but it's the only way I can describe the mix of excitement and dread I felt about cracking open the finished product. I knew what I was going to get. But even so, I didn't know what I was going to get.
The good thing is this: right from the start, the voice grabs the reader and carries them through the book. I'd like to say that if you pick up the book and read through the first scene break (it's just a tick over a page), you can pretty well decide if you're going to like the book based on the voice alone. Because either the voice works for you or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, then no promises of musical theatre or mature romances is probably going to be enough to keep you reading. Maybe it will be though. I think Ashford's done a great job with the narrator's voice, and I never had a problem with Maggie's wry humor or self-depreciation. There are several moments where I marked the text because little things cracked me up, and in all honesty, I didn't mark as much as I could have.
The humor, I think, is one of the strengths of the book. I don't mean humor in that this book is a comedy either, or that it's light-hearted. No, this is the kind of humor that comes from simple, human experience, and times like that, you can't help but laugh, especially if you can relate. For example, page 97, when Maggie and her colleagues are preparing for the cast party:
When you're twenty and gorgeous like Brittany, you can blow dry your hair, throw on a tank top and jeans, and look spectacular. When you're thirty-two and not gorgeous, you have to blow dry your hair, coax the tangles into submission, apply mousse for a casually tousled look, artfully create cheekbones with two shades of blusher, go for a sensuous, smoky-eyed look and abandon it after realizing you look like an exhausted raccoon, try on three outfits, discard them all, and finally settle on a kicky sundress that shows off your best features (cleavage) and hides your worst (hips).
Maybe that's hysterical to me because I can relate (well, I'm not 32 yet, but almost!), but I think a lot of women can relate to this voice, this way of looking at things, and embrace a heroine who knows she's not perfect and doesn't have any disillusions about it.
So humor's the first reason I'd recommend the book. Humor in that it reflects a natural, well-drawn heroine who's trying to figure out what she wants out of life and is able to help everyone else but herself in the meantime.
The second reason is the rather unique setting for the fantasy: a theatre. More to the point, musical theatre. This was a helluva lot of fun for me to read, because back in my high school days, I was a musical theatre geek, and in the few musicals I was in, had slightly more important parts than simply "The Chorus," which was always exciting (and frustrating: I always wanted a lead!). Watching Maggie discover the Crossroads and watching her interact with the cast and the crew was just all kinds of fun nostalgia, though I was never a part of something quite so magical. It was weird for me to read these chapters, because I still remember the early chapters and I'm aware of just what Ashford had to cut. In the final product, you'd never notice a thing, but my brain kept marveling at how quickly the book was reading and wondering just how much was cut or summarized, but this is a me-thing, as I read a previous draft (I was also reading one chunk a month, which makes reading even SLOWER). I was impressed at how quickly the book went by, without--in my mind--sacrificing the humor or the characterization of the leads.
The magic of the theatre was very subtle, especially at first, but I really liked how it developed and how it turned into a source of conflict in the plot. I found that to be rather well-handled, keeping the fun on the theatre while making sure the reader was always aware that something was WEIRD about this place. In my beta-read, I had all kinds of theories as to what was REALLY going on with this place, and they were all wrong, which was rather delightful: the text engages me and encourages me to theorize but still manages to surprise me.
However, I was right about one thing: Rowan.
Which leads to the third major draw of the book: a mature romance. It's no spoiler that Maggie is attracted to the Crossroads' enigmatic director, Rowan Mackenzie. What's so awesome is the careful way the attraction unfolds, how the romance is developed. This is no romance where the heroine meets the hero and immediately gets hot in her loins and it's just a matter of time before the two jump into bed together. Instead, it's a real development, filled with both characters' flaws and roadblocks to happiness and romance, which makes the question of whether or not they'll really get together truly a QUESTION, and not an assumed outcome. And even once that question is answered, it doesn't play out in any way the readers will expect, which again goes back to how grounded the emotional content and the relationships are into real life.
Yes, there's magic in this book. There's Other. But those things work because everything else has such an air of reality, and all of that together is what had me grinning at times, laughing at loud, and at other times, choking up. All the plot threads come together rather nicely, but again, I must admit bias, since I have read an earlier draft and probably wouldn't recognize a plot hole here if it hit me in the face. :)
My Rating: Couldn't Put It Down
Even though I've read a previous draft of this book, I still had a horrible time putting it down. The narrative is wonderfully readable, and Maggie's voice and situation grabs you from the very start (if it doesn't, this book probably isn't for you). There's a lot that Spellcast has to offer that we don't see very often in modern fantasy: a older, more mature heroine who isn't some kick-ass bombshell, but a normal woman who's trying really hard to find her place in life. Then there's the musical theatre, which is a helluva lot of fun, especially for someone like me, who's got a wee bit of a theatre background. Lastly, the romance is such that doesn't fall into the trope of love/lust-at-first sight. These characters don't have to fight outside sources so much as fighting themselves and their own flaws before they have a remote chance of accepting each other and finding happiness, and combine all of this together and you end up with a book that makes you laugh as much as it makes you want to cry. It's a great read (yes, I know the author, sue me, I'm biased) that ends on a striking chord. I know that Ashford intends at least one sequel, but don't let that scare you from starting Spellcast, which can easily read as a stand-alone. This is an easy book to recommend, especially for readers who want a little more maturity in their romances.
Cover Commentary: I'll be honest: when I first saw this cover, I winced. It's not a great cover, and really doesn't tell you much of anything about the book. You could infer that the book inside might be a little fun and light-hearted, but really, the cover does the story inside no favors. It's not how I envision the Crossroads theatre at all. I was really hoping, after beta-reading, that the cover would be the stage of the theatre, but hey, nobody asked me. At any rate, this is one case where one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Here's hoping the sequel has better luck.
Next up: Axis by Robert Charles Wilson