What the Spell

Written by Brittany Geragotelis

Narrated by Joy Osmanski

A teenage witch juggles popularity and romance while keeping her powers a secret in this spellbinding debut.

Almost-sixteen-year-old Brooklyn feels invisible, but she desperately wants to be pretty, to be popular, to be adored by a cute guy. Luckily for her, she’s a witch about to come of age—so she’s only a few spells away from making it all happen.

On her milestone birthday, Brooklyn’s conservative parents finally unbind her powers. This newfound freedom leads to a spell-assisted makeover, entree into the cool clique, and the attention of her longtime crush, Asher. Even better, Brooklyn discovers her true power: the ability to magically match couples with a love spell.

But Brooklyn’s quest for popularity is not without its price. As the clique escalates their initiation tests and she relies on her powers to complete the tasks, Brooklyn finds herself in the same precarious position as her Salem ancestors: if she’s found out, she could be vilified—and lose Asher in the process. Can she make the most of her magic, or will she be luckless and loveless? Be careful what you witch for!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Jan 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781442360679

Brittany Geragotelis

Brittany Geragotelis, a former Olympic-bound gymnast and magazine editor, is a self-professed pop culture junkie turned author. Her paranormal action book Life’s a Witch received 18 million reads on the writing site Wattpad.com. What the Spell is the first published book in the series, followed by Life’s a Witch and The Witch Is Back. Brittany lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Matt, and two cats, Murray and Cohen. Visit her at BrittanyGeragotelis.com.

Reviews for What the Spell

[Christine Perkins · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cute little teenage witch story. Like Sabrina the teenage witch.

[eomalley_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What I LovedAsher: Now this is a boyfriend any girl would be lucky to have! Kind, considerate, loves his family, hangs out with his little sister, smart…I fell hard for Asher and am very anxious to see what happens with him next. While Brooklyn is the lead here, Asher was the one who impressed me the most and I was none to keen on some choices Brooklyn made in regards to him.Pacing: I found What The Spell? to actually be a pretty addictive little read. Bright and sparkly, it just had me racing along to see what happened next with Brooklyn (and Asher). I started it pretty late at night, so I only got through a few chapters then, but when I picked it up the next day I didn’t put it down until I was done – basically a matter of a few hours. I was alternately enthralled and appalled by Brooklyn’s actions as she did her darndest to get in with the popular kids. The ending left me hungering for more (author Brittany Geragotelis leaves things up in the air with Brooklyn and Asher), so I will definitely be picking up book two in the series – Life’s A Witch – when it is released later this year.What I LikedConsequences: Brooklyn bows to peer pressure and ends up making some bad choices in What The Spell?, but it was nice to see that there were actual consequences to her actions. While they may not have been as severe as I would have liked, she did ultimately decide to do the right thing on her own and tried to set her wrongs right. I’m always happy to see actions having consequences.An Awesome Guidance Counselor: Frankly, I don’t think I ever even met my high school guidance counselor so I always find it interesting when one has a prominent place in a young adult novel. In this instance, I was especially intrigued by the fact that when the story kicks off Brooklyn’s only real friend IS the guidance counselor Ms. Zia. I really liked that Ms. Zia was one of the “popular kids” in school and had apparently “turned her life around” to become a high school guidance counselor, which gave her a unique insight to what Brooklyn was going through as she attempted to become one of The Elite. Even on the page she seemed warm and approachable, and I felt Geragotelis did a wonderful job with her character. I think she was probably my favorite after Asher.Cupid Strikes Again: It turns out that Brooklyn is not only a witch, she’s got a special talent for matching up couples – sensing who is perfect for who. I thought this was a cute addition to the story, and provided something a little different in a witch’s tale. It also gave an opportunity for more screw-ups on the part of Brooklyn, as well as some questions regarding her relationship with Asher. How much of it was real?What I Didn’t LikeTerrible Life Choices: I think Brooklyn may just get the prize in my book for making some of the worst life choices I’ve come across in a young adult novel in a while. Her quest for popularity leads her down some VERY questionable paths including vandalism and breaking and entering. NOT great characteristics in a lead character. As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, her choices include misdirection and outright lies to Asher. While she does eventually redeem herself (for the most part), the whole Asher thing really bothered me and I almost dropped my star rating a bit in response. However, seeing how the quest to “fit in” with the popular kids really did land her in hot water and made her (finally!) question the choices she was making I went with my first instinct and kept it at four stars. It was close, though.ConclusionAlternately enthralled and appalled by the adventures of Brooklyn as she attempted to become entrenched at the top of the high school hierarchy and land herself a great boyfriend, I found What The Spell? to be an addictive little read with some really great characters. I struggled a bit with the rating on this one (there were just so many bad choices made by the heroine), but ultimately gave it that fourth star because I did find it highly entertaining and her actions did have consequences that made her question what she was willing to do for popularity. I’m anxious to see what author Brittany Geragotelis comes up with next in book two Life’s A Witch (which apparently underwent some major rewrites after being picked up by a publisher) when it releases later this year.

[darkfaerietales_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.Quick & Dirty: This was a very predictable coming of age book. It had some cute funny moments, but slightly disappointing characters.Opening Sentence: It totally sucked being invisible.The Review: Brooklyn is a witch, well at least she was born a witch, but her over protective parents have had her powers bound since she was a baby. They promised that on her 16 birthday they would release her powers, but she has to be very cautious about using them. Brooklyn has always felt invisible in life. She has never really had any friends and she is so average looking. She has longed to fit in all her life and she knows that now she will have her powers she can make that happen. There is one particular group that she wants to be a part of. They are called “The Elite” and there are five members of the group. They are popular, beautiful, and pretty much rule the school. Everyone wants to be friends with them and everyone wants to be them.After Brooklyn gets her powers she decides to give herself a major makeover. She goes from no one to someone in a matter of days. She has always had a huge crush on Asher Astley and he has finally taken notice of her, The Elite are talking to her, and she is no longer invisible. This is what Brooklyn always wanted, but being popular and trying to fit in is not all it’s cracked up to be. Her new friends ask her to do some pretty questionable things, but if Brooklyn wants to be popular she has to pay the price.Brooklyn is an interesting character and to be honest she drove me nuts for most of the book. She had a very weak personality and she was very easily swayed. She would do pretty much anything to be popular and even though she knew what she was doing was wrong she went ahead and did it anyway. She lied to the few people who really cared about her, and she makes horrible decisions throughout the book. I will have to admit that by the end she does redeem herself some and I hope that in the next book she will be a little more likeable.Brooklyn has been pretty much in love with Asher forever. It turns out that he is also a witch so they have a lot in common. He is super sweet and really good for Brooklyn. He truly cares about her and really tries to help her make better decisions and become a better person. Unfortunately, Brooklyn keeps lying to Asher because she knows that he won’t approve of all the things she does. She is very insecure in their relationship and eventually everything comes back to bite her in the end. I really liked Asher and I hope that he and Brooklyn will be able to reconcile their relationship.This was just an ok read for me. I had such a hard time connecting with Brooklyn, and the story was very predictable. I know that high school can be hard and being popular is important, but I just felt it was a little overdone. I enjoyed the flow of the book and it was well written. I will have to admit that there was a great premise set up for the next book and I honestly am looking forward to reading it. The ending really saved this book for me, it left me intrigued and wanting more so that’s the only reason I gave it a 3 star rating. Otherwise, it would have been a 2 star for me. I would recommend this book to maybe a little bit younger crowd that likes paranormal books.Notable Scene:“Do you two want to be left alone?”I assumed the comment was meant for someone else and ignored it. When it was repeated, my curiosity got the better of me and I cracked one of my eyes open.What I saw startled me. Just a few feet away, two gorgeous eyes stared back. They crinkled at the sides as if they were smiling at me. And as I looked at the rest of his dark caramel-colored face, I saw that his lips were smiling too.Keeping my forehead on the locker, I turned my head slightly the other way to see whether he was talking to someone behind me, but to my surprise, there was no one there. I pushed myself slowly away from the locker and looked back at him, almost expecting him to have disappeared.But he was still there, leaning lazily against the lockers, hands resting in the pockets of his jeans. His smile had changed to a slight smirk as he waited for me to respond.“Um, yeah. No. I mean … what?” I said, totally caught off guard.He didn’t move toward me or away from me, just stared at me curiously. “I had a locker like that once. We were hot and heavy for a while, but then she dumped me for the janitor’s closet. And, well, how could I compete with that?”When I didn’t answer right away, he chuckled to himself and then ran his hand through his jet-black faux-hawk.“Okay. So, nice talk,” he said and slowly began to move away. “Maybe next time we’ll get to the part where you say something back? We’ll make it a whole conversation thing.”All I could do was nod as I watched Asher Astley, the boy I’d had a crush on since the beginning of school, walk away from me.FTC Advisory: Simon & Schuster provided me with a copy of What the Spell. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.

[pollywannabook · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Review courtesy of All Things Urban FantasyBack in 1989, there was a silly/fun movie released called Teen Witch about an unpopular girl who, on her sixteenth birthday, inherits a magical abilities and casts a spell to become ‘the most popular girl’ in school. There were awesome music montages, dancing, singing, and wicked cool 80′s hair. I watched it 50 bazillion times when I was a kid ((I even read the book series–somebody leave me a link if they can find them) and still can’t bring myself to switch channels whenever it’s on TV. Brittany Geragotelis’s WHAT THE SPELL? totally brought me back to my nostalgic Teen Witch days.Like Teen Witch, Brooklyn casts her spell in order to finally become popular at school (sadly without the 80′s soundtrack). She gets her wish when the uber popular group known as The Elite invite her to join them, provided she can accomplish certain tasks first to prove her worth. What follows isn’t really surprising as Brooklyn is forced to compromise her values and hurt others in her quest for popularity, including her guidance counselor (who totally reminded me of the BF mixed with Madame Serena from the movie) and the guy she always crushed on who was the only one to notice her before the spell.There is a side plot involving a potential villain who may or may not be related to an evil witch during the Salem Witch Trials, but that will have to wait for the sequel. The ending does resolve the main conflict of Brooklyn deciding what popularity is really worth to her, but a lot is left for future books in the Life’s a Witch Series. WHAT THE SPELL? isn’t a ground breaking book and there are issues with it, but it is silly/fun just like the movie Teen Witch. If you’re looking for a little harmless magic, pick it up. I’ll probably be returning for more of Brooklyn’s story when THE WITCH IS BACK releases in January 2014.Sexual Content:Kissing