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INTO L.J. SMITH'S SECRET CIRCLE THE SECRET CIRCLE VOLUME TWO: THE CAPTIVE By L.J. Smith Harper, October 1992 294 pp(Due to be reprinted in October 1999) THE
SECRET CIRCLE VOLUME THREE: THE POWER L(isa). J(ane). Smith is primarily known for her bestselling YA series THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, but of her many novels, the hardest to find are the three books comprising the SECRET CIRCLE trilogy. Why? Because the folks who read them, don't let go of them. They are treasured parts of collections, re-read and discussed on the internet. There are webpages devoted to Smith and to the Secret Circle. What's the big fuss, I wondered, so I picked up the books and read them and now I'm in on the secret and I'm willing to share it with you because these books, due to be reprinted in mid to late 1999, definitely deserve a much wider audience. They are damn good. A couple of things need to be tossed out first. Number one, this series, while listed as young adult, is much like many YA novels these days--it's great for adults who are simply young at heart as well. Think of the old Heinlein juveniles. They were young adult primarily because of the ages of the protagonists. The same is true here. Don't be an old fool and dismiss these books because you think you're too old to read YA novels. If you feel that way, then tell the bookseller that you're buying them for your daughter or niece or sister, then get home and start reading. Tell yourself you'll read a couple of chapters and next thing you know you'll be a hundred pages in, totally hooked and you'll think, that Jonas guy isn't such a fool after all. Second, this overview of the trilogy will go in-depth and, while I'll try not to give everything away, some revelations are inevitable. My suggestion is that you go on a used bookstore hunt to find the three books and read them before you read this article. Are you still reading? Have you read the books? If not, then go read them, then come back. Okay, we're on the honor system here. Let's rock. The trilogy opens in Cape Cod with our heroine, Cassie Blake, a shy girl from California hanging out on the beach with a stuck-up girl named Portia and a couple of Portia's friends. Cassie doesn't feel like she fits in with this group, but she tells herself there's only one more week to deal with before she goes back to California and her old friends. A young man walks down the beach with his dog and Portia tells Cassie not to look at him--just look down because they are proper girls and won't look at some loser who works on a fishing boat. He's beneath them. Cassie, to her shame, looks down and studies the crystals in the sand. Next thing you know, the dog races up to her and she can't help herself, she makes over the German shepherd and looks up into the boy's eyes. It seems as if he can read her mind. When he leaves, Portia is upset with her and takes off to get her brothers, muttering a word, Cassie isn't sure she heard correctly: "Witch." Soon, the boy returns and he's being chased by Portia's brothers--one of whom has a gun. Cassie hides the boy and his dog and sends the thugs off in the wrong direction. We get our first hint that Cassie isn't just a shy girl--there's a core of strength in her and ... more? When the boy thanks her, he gives her a chalcedony rose and tells her that if she's ever in trouble, hold the stone and think of him and he'll come to save her. She notices a silver cord that seems to bind her heart to his--soulmates--but he leaves before she even finds out his name. Instead of going back to California, Cassie and her mother go to New Salem to visit Cassie's grandmother. Cassie has never met her grandmother and she doesn't remember her father, who left them long ago. New Salem doesn't set well with Cassie. Her grandmother lives in an old house that dates back to 1693 and is full of creaks and moans. Cassie can't sleep there and she doesn't know anyone and they have to stay there for a whole year! She has to go to a new school and meet new people and life doesn't look too good. It doesn't help that she can't stop thinking about the boy even though she knows she'll never see him again. The new school sucks. Cassie can't seem to fit in. She finds that there is a Club that has the run of the school and she winds up making fast enemies of a girl named Faye. The names of the characters have a lot of resonance. Faye certainly brings up some Arthurian feelings and Cassie is short for Cassandra (think the prophetess). We quickly meet a number of the Club members--Chris and Doug, who are wild party guys into heavy metal, Deborah, the biker chick, Suzan, who is really into guys and cold, distant, darkly handsome Nick. Faye, Deborah and Suzan trap Cassie in the old science building and we get another touch of the supernatural when Faye displays a knack for handling fire. We also note that Cassie seems to have some power of her own, though she doesn't know how to draw on it. She is rescued by the lovely Diana (those names again). Note that Diana has light hair and Faye has dark hair--they are one soul split in two with the dark half and light half as it were. Diana is pure and Faye is wicked. Diana is the girl your mother wants you to marry, while Faye is the girl with whom you'd like to party. Diana and Cassie become great friends and adopt each other as sisters. We also get to know Melanie and Laurel, who side with Diana. Cassie, though not part of the group, is now welcome to sit with Club members since Diana is the leader of the Club. Things seem to be getting better. So naturally, it's time for a murder. Kori, the sister of Doug and Chris, is killed and the Club members think the Outsiders did it. Outsiders, of course, are the folks who aren't in the Club. Kori was ready to be initiated into the Club since there need to be twelve members. With her dead, they need a replacement. Cassie. When they initiate her, she finds that it's not just a club, but a coven.--a circle of witches and that she, too, is a witch. All of the witches live on Crowhaven Road and they're all related. There is also a great deal of turmoil in the Circle as Faye and Diana face each other down to determine who will be the true leader.. Needless to say, the story ties in the Salem Witch Trials, though back in 1692, there were no real witches accused--only outsiders died. A year after the Trials and the deaths of twenty innocent people, the witches formed New Salem on an island off the coast of New England. As soon as she's initiated into the Circle, the boy returns and we find that he is Diana's boyfriend who was out on a quest for the Master Tools--the original magical items used by the witches who formed New Salem. The boy's name is Adam (named that way since he's the first male in the book?) and when Cassie sees him rush into Diana's arms, her heart breaks. She can't have him, but she also can't tell Diana that Adam was the boy she met in Cape Cod, so she pretends that she meets him for the first time. Adam goes with it, trusting her to have her reasons. And he unveils one of the Master Tools, which he found--a crystal skull. The skull radiates evil to Cassie. It belonged to Black John, the powerful witch who was one of the main leaders in the 1690s. The coven has a ceremony to try to learn about the skull and when they mess with it, they unleash a dark force, which they later discover kills the school principal by crushing him in an avalanche.. After they break up the ceremony, Diana asks Adam to walk Cassie home. Cassie tries to stay distant from Adam and pretend that he means nothing to her, even calling on the elements to try to make him believe her. But Adam can see through it. Next thing you know they're in each others arms, kissing. Hmm, can you say Lancelot and Guinevere with Diana filling in as the beloved Arthur? I thought you could. They pull themselves apart because they don't want to hurt Diana. And although they both know they were meant for each other, Cassie isn't sure Diana can face the opposition of Faye and her friends, who are looking to take over the coven, without Adam by her side. So they make a blood oath not to betray her. But there's a problem. Faye finds out about Cassie and Adam and uses this dark secret to make Cassie her captive. Cassie will have to do what Faye wants, or Faye will tell Diana about what happened between our heroine and Adam. Granted, all they did was kiss, which hardly seems like much to get too upset about, but I just figured they went a lot further than first base, but the scene was edited for publication. Works for me. Does it work for you? Regardless, Cassie can't face being ratted out, so she agrees to help Faye. This quickly snowballs for her since each deed she performs for Faye drives a wedge between her and Diana. Faye makes Cassie bring her the crystal skull and in a rushed ceremony, Faye unleashes another batch of dark energy. Cassie takes the skull and returns it to its hiding place and she knows that someone else will die and that she is partly responsible. She decides that she must be evil. At a school dance, Cassie finds a student dead--hanging. This ties into the Salem Witch Trials, too, of course. Kori had her neck broken (which happens with hanging), the principal was crushed (as Giles Corey was pressed to death in 1692) and Jeffrey dies by hanging (the most popular method of slaying accused witches during the trials--19 out of 20 for you trivia buffs). Cassie puts this together, of course--she's intelligent, but it takes her awhile because she isn't familiar with the witch trials. Cassie, Nick, Deborah and Adam track the dark force to the cemetery, where Cassie loses a crystal she was loaned. The energy disappears at a giant mound, which has a door padlocked and blocked off by a giant concrete slab--as if to keep something inside. The next morning, Cassie goes back to the cemetery to try to find the crystal she lost. What she finds are the graves of the vast majority of the Club's parents grouped together around the mound. They all died on the same day in 1976. The Club members also have an odd similarity in that they were all born within a month of each other--except for Cassie, who was born nine months later. All of this plays into the tale about how Black John returns to take over the coven. Some of the parents had tried to kill him back in '76--those who had the courage. The surviving parents are the weak and cowardly folks. They want nothing to do with magic and have convinced themselves that it doesn't work, although they were all practicing witches at one time. Faye uses Cassie's secret shame to force her to vote for Faye in the leadership vote. Then things go awry and Black John is freed from his prison in the mound. After her grandmother dies giving her a warning that Black John is back, Cassie refuses to do anything more for Faye. So Faye tells Diana about Cassie and Adam, hoping to destroy Cassie's last hope of friendship. In a stroke of genius, Black John returns as the new school principal and begins to put his plan into action. As the principal, he is in a position of authority and there's no way for the Club to simply avoid him. Not everyone wants to avoid him, of course. Faye teams up with him to try to lure the rest of the coven into his power. And it all comes to a head much like it did for the coven's parents as they all must go to the final showdown with Black John where it's do or die. The writing is very good with some wonderful descriptions--some pumpkins in the back of a Suzuki Samurai "thumped and rolled in the back seat like a load of severed heads." But the thing that really endears the book to you as a reader is the characterization. Smith makes the people real. You feel as if you know Cassie and her friends. We read books to get connected to people more than we can in everyday life and in that department, THE SECRET CIRCLE trilogy delivers in spades. There are touches of mythology sprinkled through the books as well. I've already mentioned the Arthurian nods, but there are also a lot of nods to Greek mythology from prints on Diana's wall, which are discussed and partially related to some of the characters. At one point, Cassie is likened to a Muse. History plays a small role with the Witch Trials. Smith handles this perfectly so when things are tied in, you say, "Cool." It's a tough tightrope to walk when dealing with something so obvious, but it certainly works here and adds to the overall impact of the books. Great stuff. There is a lot of talk of herbs and in fact, there's even a notice on the copyright page of books 2 & 3 that says: "The herbal concoctions in this book are fictional and from the author's imagination. They should in no way be construed as recipes, medicine, advice or recommendations for the reader." You know you've done well making something up when the publisher puts in a warning to the reader. Actually, I only have a couple of complaints. First is that the final battle is just too easy. The set-up is great, but then there really isn't a final battle. There are some nice emotional touches there, but we've gone through three books to get to a showdown and it doesn't amount to anything. Black John is supposed to be an incredibly powerful sorcerer who's been around since the 1600s. Sorry, but I think he'd put up a fight. In the scheme of things, that's a minor quibble. The other problem is actually a nice complaint for an author to hear from a reader--I didn't want the books to end. It was great to hang out with Cassie and her friends. Then again, perhaps Black John will return. One can certainly hope. Grades: SECRET CIRCLE VOLUME ONE: THE INITIATION A+ SECRET CIRCLE VOLUME TWO: THE CAPTIVE A+ SECRET CIRCLE VOLUME THREE: THE POWER A Overall,
an A+ series. Definitely check it out. |
Originally appeared in bare*bones #5, 2000
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