Review: Spell Bound by F.T. Lukens

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Spell Bound by F.T. Lukens
Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books on April 4, 2023
Genres: YA LGBTQ, YA Urban Fantasy
Pages: 336
Source: the publisher
Format: Hardcover
My Rating:
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Blurb:

Two rival apprentice sorcerers must team up to save their teachers and protect their own magic in this lively young adult romantic adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of In Deeper Waters and So This Is Ever After.

Edison Rooker isn’t sure what to expect when he enters the office of Antonia Hex, the powerful sorceress who runs a call center for magical emergencies. He doesn’t have much experience with hexes or curses. Heck, he doesn’t even have magic. But he does have a plan—to regain the access to the magical world he lost when his grandmother passed.

Antonia is…intimidating, but she gives him a job and a new name—Rook—both of which he’s happy to accept. Now all Rook has to do is keep his Spell Binder, an illegal magical detection device, hidden from the Magical Consortium. And contend with Sun, the grumpy and annoyingly cute apprentice to Antonia’s rival colleague, Fable. But dealing with competition isn’t so bad; as Sun seems to pop up more and more, and Rook minds less and less.

But when the Consortium gets wind of Rook’s Spell Binder, they come for Antonia. All alone, Rook runs to the only other magical person he knows: Sun. Except Fable has also been attacked, and now Rook and Sun have no choice but to work together to get their mentors back…or face losing their magic forever.

My Review

So I loved the last book I read by this author, So This Is Ever After, and I jumped at the chance to read this when the publisher offered to send me this copy. Then things came up in my life and I got to it later than planned. 🙁 But once I picked it up, I was hooked!

I loved the different take on magic and it being in the world and there are just kind of like the muggles and the magical, only it’s not secret that there is magic, just that if you aren’t magical you can’t know the secrets on how the magic works or learn about it. The characters were all very interesting, and it definitely had some good representation for LGBTQ characters, as well as a pretty perfect world they lived in that they didn’t have to deal with what types of issues are in our real world.

The romance was sweet and fun and snarky, just the way I like it. I could almost see a sequel coming to this, as I feel there is a lot in this magical world I’d love to have more adventure in!

About the Author

F.T. Lukens is a New York Times bestselling author of YA speculative fiction including the novels So This Is Ever After, In Deeper Waters, and the forthcoming Spell Bound as well as other science-fiction and fantasy works. Their contemporary fantasy novel The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths & Magic was a 2017 Cybils Award finalist in YA Speculative Fiction, the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Gold Winner for YA fiction and won the Bisexual Book Award for Speculative Fiction. F.T. resides in North Carolina with their spouse, three kids, three dogs, and three cats.