Review: Spellweaver (The Spellweaver Chronicles #1) by C.J. Bridgeman

Book One of the Spellweaver Chronicles
Felicity Lucas never really knew her mother. Even though they had lived together for all the fourteen years that Felicity had been alive, they had barely even had a meaningful conversation. It was a relationship that was far from perfect.

So when her mother dies in a car crash and Felicity is sent to live with her estranged father in a deprived London borough, she is determined to move on. It isn't easy - content with her solitude, she's never had friends before, but the most popular girl in her new school won't leave her alone and she's forced to attend counselling. To make things worse, it's obvious that her father doesn't want her around.

It is only after she discovers a book of spells and is attacked by a strange boy who can conjure flames in his hands that she starts to realise that her mother was far more than what she seemed. She had a great many secrets, secrets that promise to thrust Felicity into a terrifying world of magic and straight into the path of beings who are determined to destroy her...

I received this book to give an honest review.

I was really hoping to get into this book but it just felt dull to me. I couldn't really relate to Felicity on any type of level. Yes she was this shy girl and I get that. Being as I was shy in school, but it just seemed like that wasn't her. She makes a comment in the story "my mother never showed me how to make friends." It is kind of up to you on making friends. Or at least that is how I see it. 

There wasn't much action within the story like I hoped from the blurb. 

Felicity learns that her life has been a secret and that her mother was much more than just a mom! There is a mystery surrounding the background of Felicity and her mother. She also learns about friendship, and has a small amount of action come to her which makes her come out of her shy shell. I hope there is more details in book 2 on the "other world" that was brought up in the story.

 Overall decent story, but like I said it felt dull, and fell short of what I was hoping. I wanted more magic, more action that dealt with spells and magic. More of a female character who was strong and not dullish.

Claire Bridgeman is a secondary school English teacher living in Norwich, England, with her husband, their 1 year old daughter Pearl, their black fluffy cat and the fly infestation currently inhabiting the conservatory. She has written many books but it was only in 2013, at the age of 28, that she felt her work was good enough to be thrust upon the general public. She thinks it’s an awful shame that there isn’t more creative writing in the current education system of the UK and believes that every child should be encouraged to explore the wondrous depths of his or her imagination through an artistic medium.
Bridgeman loves all things fantasy. At the age of 16 she went to see The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring at the cinema 7 times. She recently replayed Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark just to relive the Valen Shadowbreath romance. She wishes that Alistair from Dragon Age were a real person (so she could marry him). Her favourite book series is the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. She met him once. He was very nice.
Her debut novel is an amalgamation of all her favourite fantasy things – a pinch of Dungeons & Dragons, mix in some Buffy the Vampire Slayer (without the vampires) and top the whole thing off with a sprinkling of Harry Potter and there you have it – the Spellweaver Chronicles. Bridgeman hopes to tell human stories as much as fantasy ones, stories that deal with common, everyday themes and feelings like love, loss, grief, friendship and bullying. She wants to explore human emotion and experience using the fantasy genre, and with urban fantasy in particular, she feels that she has found the place to plant her stories and watch them grow.