Review: Sleight

Jun •  29 •  2011

“Her mom is dead.
Ghosts follow her around.
Her best friend is an elephant.
And she’s about to meet the biggest game changer of all: a boy. With a secret.

When circus-dwelling Gemma Flannery learns she will be attending public school for the first time in her seventeen years, little does she know that fitting in with her 12th-grade classmates will be the least of her concerns. A pro at hiding her knack for seeing the dead (“shades”), Gemma is grieving the recent suicide of her mentally ill mother, a process eased by the introduction of her first real love interest, the charming and painfully handsome Henry Dmitri, who is harboring his own collection of dangerous secrets. Together, they will be presented with a frightening challenge: to assume their roles as heirs to a 3000-year-old magical text, the AVRAKEDAVRA, a book the über-rich, sleight-of-being master Lucian Dmitri would do anything to get his hands on. As each terrifying layer in her new reality melts away, Gemma unearths truths that her quiet, nomadic life with the Cinzio Traveling Players is not at all what she’d always cherished. Gemma and Henry must rely on each other to stop Lucian’s diabolical plotting that will bring the world to its tired, scab-riddled knees, and are sent on the flight of their young lives, to save themselves, their families, and the world from the darkest kind of destruction.

Let the chase begin.”

I have to tell that I am so happy that I brought this book with me to my husband’s eye doctor appointment. As soon as I started the book, it bit into me so hard,  I did not stop reading. I kept going till the very end. I was not at all disappointed. Instead I was giddy and excited that I had just read an amazing book! 

The reason that I loved Sleight so much was the plot line. Not only was it very entertaining but it really grasped the reader in a whole new world. So many books today are all based on the same thing. Vampires, werewolves, angels, etc. But this one is based on magic, a kind of magic that is old and very powerful. The elements in this book, betrayal, death, and love are all in it. The pacing of the story, I felt was spot on. As the reader, you go along with Gemma, figuring out the clues to her mother’s death, the past family she never knew, and what she must do to defeat the one person in the world who she was dying to know.

What I liked about Gemma is that she is so real. I loved how she wasn’t a strong heroine who can defeat anyone, but someone who needed understanding and guidance. Gemma is definitely a girl who I think all of us girls can relate too. She stepped up to the plate when needed but she is also very much a girl, who just wants a normal life.

The love interest was tough at first and just got even juicer. I was just shocked and amazed how two people can not only have so much secrets but can go through so many things!!! I like that Gemma’s love for him really showed. Even in the tough times, she held on trying to find different ways to solve all of their problems.


Sleight is a amazing book. I can’t tell you how much I love being in this world. To be in Gemma’s shoes and feel her love, pain, and anger, was awesome. That’s when you know you are reading a good book. If you can feel, then the author succeeded in bring you into the world they created in their mind. Simply Fantastic!

I give it 5 BITES!

Happy Reading!