The Secret Cirlce: The Initiation

So, let me go on the record to say that this is the first time ever that I haven't liked the bitch. I always like the bitch/ villain of the story, just so happens I love the main character -- naive as she is.

The story by L. J. Smith begins with a girl, Cassie Blake, on vacation with her mother, Alexandra. She's bored out of her gourd as she sits next to a local Cape Cod girl, Portia Bainbridge, babbling on about everything that Cassie is not interested in. She just keeps reminding herself that she only has one week left on vacation and then it's back home to sunny California.

Then she meets a boy, a visitor to Cape Cod as well, and something strange happens. A strange connection. She feels as though she knows him, as if he is someone she is to protect and he is someone to keep her safe. This is tested when Portia's brothers and a few of their friends are chasing this poor boy and his dog. She helps him to hide and he repays her by giving her a stone of protection. She thinks it's a lovely gesture but doesn't believe in its hocus pocus. That being said, she still couldn't keep him out of her mind.

Even as her mother drops devastating news into her lap, news that will flip her life upside down, she still thinks that at least she might see him one last time. But this still does not change that she will never see California again as long as she is a minor because her estranged grandmother has taken a turn for the worst and needs the care of her family. So, Cassie and her mother move to New Salem in hopes of helping her grandmother all the while being scared to death of the fresh start she has been given.

She begins school and is accosted by the most beautiful and frightening girl in town. She is shunned and feels as thought she is an outcast. No one will talk to her, sit with her at lunch or in the classroom, won't even look at her. Her mother has taken ill and her grandmother is still on the mend, she is alone. Until she meets a girl named Diana, a kindred spirit, a confidant. She is the girl who makes the difference and accepts Cassie for who she is. In doing so Cassie is no longer shunned at school, but welcomed. This is where Cassie's new life beings.

She is thrown into a world of secrecy, witch craft, and lust.

This is the second time I have read this book. I give it two thumbs up and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a fast read and a good secret. I will be rereading the rest of the series because there is a new book out and I can't wait to get there. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I do and if you are basing your opinion off of the television series, don't. They are nothing alike.