CHIMERA AND CURSES

A spellcasting teen and her friends must keep a magical creature out of enemy hands in Marshall’s YA second fantasy novel in a series.

When crazy calls, Kori Ember answers. She’s a Spellbinder—a magic user living in a world of people who know nothing of magic. She’s helping her “normie”best friend, Fin Salinger, and her Spellbinder secret crush, Belamey Adelgrief, launch their new café. One day she gets a visit from the finicky, hiccupping shapeshifter Lord Bradig, who comes with a mission for the three friends: a magical creature has surfaced that can provide immense power to whomever bonds with it. Kori sees a photo of her target, which she describes as “the cutest little animal” with “the distinctive wrinkly shape of a gorilla’s face but on a hamster-sized body.” She and her friends must travel to Costa Rica to catch the gorilla-hamster before it falls into the wrong hands, and it’s clear from a recent attack on the café that someone’s already looking for it. Can Kori keep her cool while working in such proximity to Belamey, on whom she has a crush? Marshall’s prose is descriptive and sometimes appealingly jocular, as when Kori observes the oblivious, elfin shapeshifter: “Lord Bradig’s repositioning brought his short frame into a downward dog position….My positioning gives me an eyeful of what lies under his short green shirt. Two of the roundest, plumpest butt cheeks I’ve ever seen are up in the air.” However, Marshall spends a lot of time and text moving characters between locations without offering much in the way of context or purpose. Characters sometimes find jokes funny, or behaviors shocking, but readers aren’t always clued into the reasons why. The story is ultimately underwhelming, so readers may wonder why it feels like so much work.

A cluttered and ultimately unsatisfying fantasy sequel.