#omens bite

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Oh well, onto the next one! 

Omen’s Bite follows teen twin witches Hunter and Mercy Goode as they continue their task of healing the trees that protect their hometown of Goodeville, IL while navigating their strained relationship following the events of Spells Trouble. Years ago, I read the House of Night series by PC Cast and Kristin Cast and enjoyed it, so I went into the Sisters of Salem series hopeful, but I was ultimately underwhelmed. I am, admittedly, not the target audience, but I also had a difficult time figuring out what age group this series was written for. Based on the dialogue and prose alone, I would have guessed that this series was for the younger side of YA, maybe as a branch between middle grade and YA, but given the detailed sex scene in the first book, this doesn’t track (thankfully there was no such scene in book 2, a great improvement). Another improvement from Spells Trouble is that Hunter and Mercy felt more flushed out and distinct from each other as characters. I found the dialogue to be stiff and lacking; it doesn’t feel like how real people talk. I also do not care for Xena, the familiar who became the twins’ de facto guardian in Spells Trouble. The fact that she is a cat is overplayed while she is in human form and any instance of her (no spoilers as these happened in book one as well) asking for cream or tuna, complaining about having to wear clothes, or lamenting about having to act human to feel like filler and don't add much to the story. I think this is indicative of the book's overall issue with pacing: everything felt drawn out and relayed so matter-of-factly that it came off as underwhelming and not engaging. I found I had to push myself to continue reading it. If it weren’t reading a review copy, I probably would have DNF’d around 30% in, but I wanted to make sure I gave it a fair chance for a review by completing it. The book picks up around the 70% mark, but this was a bit late into the story to hold my attention. The overall story arc is interesting, but ultimately felt repetitive and predictable.