**REVIEW** Star Cursed by Jessica Spotswood

Published By:  Putman Juvenile

Release Date: June 18, 2013

Review Copy:  Hardcover, 384 pages

                           from Penguin Canada 

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With the Brotherhood persecuting witches like never before, a divided Sisterhood desperately needs Cate to come into her Prophesied powers. And after Cate's friend Sachi is arrested for using magic, a war-thirsty Sister offers to help her find answers—if Cate is willing to endanger everyone she loves.

Cate doesn't want to be a weapon, and she doesn't want to involve her friends and Finn in the Sisterhood's schemes. But when Maura and Tess join the Sisterhood, Maura makes it clear that she'll do whatever it takes to lead the witches to victory. Even if it means sacrifices. Even if it means overthrowing Cate. Even if it means all-out war.

In the highly anticipated sequel to Born Wicked, the Cahill Witch Chronicles continue Cate, Maura and Tess's quest to find love, protect family, and explore their magic against all odds in an alternate history of New England.

  Witches and I normally are not a good combination.  It is just how things have been for me, I want to read them and love them but they fall short.  Last year when I picked up Born Wicked things started to change and Star Curse had only made things better!  The stakes are higher, the emotional ups and downs almost killed me and the ending damn near tore my heart out.  This series is so much more than witches, so much more than three sisters trying to change the oppression people live in.  You get all the goodness of those things but you also get the personal struggle and lessons learned from the girls. This one is a roller coaster of everything and I am so glad I went along for the ride.

  The Cahill sisters are special, prophesied about and both the Brotherhood and Sisterhood wants them but for different reasons.  I'm at this point not sure where more of the evil sys because the lines are becoming blurred.  Not that I agree with the tight restrictions that the Brotherhood has now enforced and how hard they are with their punishments but there are a few that aren completely in agreement with what is going on.  The same thing goes for the Sisters, I think it's all just a matter of who is in power.  There are some of them that don't just want to fix things for the better but are willing to risk everything to gain enough power to be on top, to gain complete power over everything and everyone.

  Cate is the first witch I have ever truly loved.  I have enjoyed some here and there but it is Cate that set the bar higher than ever before and creating room for witchy reads in the future.  Cate is quite simply a character that you want to read, you want to see victorious and you have nothing but respect for.  In this book more than ever I felt for her and despite all her strength I expected her to crumble...she didn't.  Now there is a little bit of anger that has been sparked and truth be told if I were her I would have flat out lost it but somehow she pulls on the strength that made me love her so much and for the most part raised above the anger.  This isn't saying that she didn't let it out but she also didn't strangle someone like I may have been tempted  to do.  All I am going to say is that she has some of her hope returned to her just to have someone close to hear rip her heart out and yet she still stands tall and believes in what has to be done.

  The return of Cate's sisters was perfect in this book.  I figured it would happen but it was a matter of how soon, turns out it was fairly early on and for good reason.  Maura and Tess are basically polar opposites and so is my opinion of them.  Now I am sorry to all of the Maura fans out there but I felt nothing like doing nothing but shaking this girl and possibly pushing her off of her high hoarse.  Now she has always been ambitious but something has turned in her and I fear that she is becoming dangerous, someone (sister or not) that is just not to be trusted.  There is this tiny part of me that says the one you can't trust turns out to be the one you should trust but for the most part I just can't get over the freaking attitude and mistreatment that she gives those that she feels beneath her.  Tess I have always loved, with her logic and calm that is beyond her years.  Now more than ever I wanted to hug her and protect her just like Cate does but the fact of the matter is Tess is growing up.  She is kind of like Cate in the sense that she is selfless and only wants to help others.

  With everything coming to a head: the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood, townspeople and even the Cahill sisters this one was so hard to put down...until the end.  I put it down harder than I would like to admit.  I don't enjoy cliffhangers but I normally tolerate them but this one not only left me hanging but with a heavy/broken heart and I may or may not have ranted for the rest of the day about it (much to my husbands confusion).  Despite all of this I did love the book and where it went.  I think a large part of me knew something like that was coming but denied it up until the last moment.  If you read the first book (Born Wicked) this is a MUST have now!  If you haven't pick them both up and get started right away.  If you are like me and are normally hesitant when it comes to witches, don't be because you may end up like me and start looking for more!

  But that would mean accepting that this is my home now--that my place is here among these strangers, that my future lies with the Sisterhood, not with Finn.

  For a few moments, my entire world consists of Finn--his mouth, his hands.  Eventually, I pull away, burrowing my cold face into his neck.  He shivers and wraps both arms around me.

"You're a fighter, aren't you, Cate Cahill?  Even when you were a child, you had a temper.  Lord, you were such a ragamuffin.  Always chasing that neighbor boy of yours."

  She slams the door behind her, and I sink down onto my bed, head in my hands.  Is she right?  Have Cora's pretty compliments only been flattery, because I'm a better alternative than Inez?