{"id":899,"date":"2015-04-10T07:05:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-10T15:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=899"},"modified":"2015-04-15T09:27:43","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T17:27:43","slug":"review-trail-of-the-spellmans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/10\/review-trail-of-the-spellmans\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Trail of the Spellmans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Trail<\/a>
\nTrail of the Spellmans<\/a> by Lisa Lutz<\/a>
\nMy rating: 4 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

Trail of the Spellmans<\/i> is fifth in the series so the only way to review it is to compare it to the other Spellman novels. Because, as I’ve said before, by now you\u2019re either committed or not bothering\u2014no one\u2019s reading this book as a stand alone. And if you are, I don\u2019t know what to say other than: don\u2019t, go read the first one first. If you don\u2019t have anything else to read, then why you on the internet reading my silly reviews?<\/p>\n

Anyway, Trail: same old Spellmans, really. Maybe a bit watered down this time. Rae has become sort of a cliche unto herself, very predictable. One would love to see Lutz write a novel from Rae\u2019s point of view sometime, maybe, since cliche or not, she\u2019s interesting.<\/p>\n

Dad Spellman is little less just his wife\u2019s shadow in this one, but only for the sake of, I think, the sequel. I won\u2019t spoil it; suffice it to say that while book four might have been the last of the Spellman novels, book five can\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

We finally get to meet Grammy Spellman, and as strong as she comes in, she\u2019s not really all the significant. She\u2019s touted as an Izzy foil, but really she\u2019s just a plot device. Specifically, she\u2019s a mean by which Mom Spellman gets to be mysterious for half the book.<\/p>\n

Cause that\u2019s how these Spellman novels work, right? Lots of family mysteries, which fuel the conflict that complicate the pursuit of outside mysteries. Lutz is really really good at this. Even if, in my opinion, some of the family mysteries are a bit contrived. Sometimes it\u2019s hard to swallow that this family of investigators is so dedicated to hiding truths from each other. Just as Rae has become a bit of a stock character, so too has this secrecy penchant become sort of schticky.<\/p>\n

But it doesn’t matter. I thoroughly enjoy these books. Looking forward to number six!<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trail of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz My rating: 4 of 5 stars Trail of the Spellmans is fifth in the series so the only way to review it is to compare it to the other Spellman novels. Because, as I’ve said before, by now you\u2019re either committed or not bothering\u2014no one\u2019s reading this book … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: Trail of the Spellmans”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-ev","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":935,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions\/935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}