Watch Me Burn

After finishing "Destruction," the first book in Sharon Bayliss's "The December People" series, I was fortunate enough to get a copy of the follow-up as an Advanced Review Copy (in exchange for an honest review.) I enjoyed the book quite a bit and recommend it, but I have to say it wasn't quite as good as "Destruction."

I think much of that was due to the way the first book focused primarily on introducing us to the Vandergraff family and the world they live in. By having the narrower focus of setting the stage for future stories and letting us see how the family interacts with each other and reacts to the changes they face just made for a tighter narrative.

In "Watch Me Burn," the family have adapted to their new circumstances and are going about living their lives when David hears that a local girl has gone missing. In fact, the news of her disappearance seems to be following him around, as he keeps running into reminders of it. Knowing that when someone casts a spell they can't always predict how the spell will bring about the desired results, and that sometimes a spell will "decide" that a certain person needs to be part of the process, David comes to believe that the missing girl must also be from a wizard family, and the spell her parents cast has decided it needs his help.

It turns out that his daughter Emily has met the girl previously, and when she discovers the girl's bracelet in the family car, she decides she needs to help investigate as well. Things quickly get complicated when it seems one of the Vandergraff boys may know more than he's letting on, another girl disappears, and Emily finds herself falling for a boy who just might be trouble.

There are a few other complications as well, and this is where my only real complaint with the book comes in - there's just almost TOO much plot for a book of its length. There's a side story about Amanda Vandergraff trying to help her son Jude get back on the right track, and one about the lengths a wizard will go to in trying to thwart a prophecy. That second side story, had it been fully fleshed out, could have made for a very interesting - and tension-filled - central story in a book of its own. Instead, it almost gets lost mixed in with the other story threads.

Don't get me wrong, though - "Watch Me Burn" is a very good book and certainly makes me hope for another visit with the Vandergraffs. Bayliss does some very smart and unexpected things in the book that kept me turning the pages even when my brain was telling me it was time for food or sleep. This is a series worth checking out!