Review: Spells by Aprilynne Pike

"I can't just storm in and proclaim my intentions. I can't ‘steal' you away. I just have to wait and hope that, someday, you'll ask," Tamani said.
"And if I don't?" Laurel said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Then I guess I'll be waiting forever."

Although Laurel has come to accept her true identity as a faerie, she refuses to turn her back on her human life—and especially her boyfriend, David—to return to the faerie world.

But when she is summoned to Avalon, Laurel's feelings for the charismatic faerie sentry Tamani are undeniable. She is forced to make a choice—a choice that could break her heart.

-barnesandnoble.com

Laurel saved the gateway of Avalon is now forced to spend her summer there to train.  Fall faerie training turns out to be much more difficult than she had anticipated and discoveres that she is behind but lucky for her she has the ever so charming Tamani to keep her entertained and show her Avalon.

Summer for her ends too soon and not soon enough.  With her parents aware of her true identity her fall bloom is much easier to cope with although her mom can't hardly look at her with out freak written all over her expression.   But her mother is the least of her problems when Laurel and David are attacked by trolls but this time is saved by a womam named Klea who is more shadey than the sunglasses she wears twenty four seven.

One of my favorite things about this book is that the reader gets a peak into Avalon and the faerie world as opposed to Laurel learing that she is a strange plant being.  In Avalon the reader sees a whole new system of order in which Laurel is almost at the top of the food chain and Tamani is at the bottum, although in my opinion, I think the spring faeries powers are much more impressive than the fall and summer faeries, to whom they are inferioru too.  I think that if a spring faerie and a winter faeried teamed up they would make the most badass team of faeries you could get becasue spring faeries can control animals and winter faeries can control plants.

I like the new characters that are introduced into this part of the story.  Klea saved Laurel and David and seems to be on their side.  But she hunts the supernatural in general so does she know about faeries?  Does she hunt faeries too?  Does she know that Laurelle is a faerie and if so is she going to try to use her to get the the gateway of Avalon and kill all of the other faeires?  Her character alone adds a ton of new possible directions for the story to go in.

Although I believe I mentioned this in my review of Wings, the first book of the series, it one of my favorite qualities of the series so I must mention it again.  I love that the faeires are the most advanced, evolved form of plants.  Laurel literally blossums in the fall, Tamani pollenates.  They exhale oxygen and inhale carbon dioxide and get sick if they consume anything other than fruits, vegetables, water, and pure sugar.  While they have magical powers like your usual faeries, they are fragile like a lot of plants.  It is a completely unique take on faeries.