The Coven By: Cate Tiernan Sweep # 2

 The Coven By: Cate Tiernan

Sweep # 2

"I am not who I thought I was. I am not a regular sixteen-year-old girl. 

I am a witch. A real, ancestral witch. My parents are not my biological parents. 

My sister and I share no blood.

Even in the coven, I am too powerful now, too different to belong.

I am alone except for Cal. Cal tells me he loves me, and I need to believe him."

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******Spoiler Warning******

16-year-old Morgan Rowlands has just joined the newly created Cirrus coven. At the coven's creation circle on Samhain; after a display of power making a flower bud bloom in front of everyone, her major crush Cal Blair tells her she is a blood witch: a person who is born with natural magical abilities and then kisses her in front of their entire new coven including her former best friend Bree who believes she is in love with Cal. 

Morgan now believes her parents have been lying to her, because if she is truly a blood witch then they have to be as well. When Morgan's mother finds the Wicca books that Bree leaves on their front porch the next morning in revenge, she bursts into Morgan's room demanding an explanation. Morgan calmly explains to them everything she has learned and suggests that all of them must be blood witches. Her mother screeches that they are not witches, and Morgan laughs and jokingly asks if she was adopted. The silence she got in return to her question made her run to find her birth certificate. Praying she was wrong she looked at where her birth mothers name was and where she expected to see Mary Grace Rowlands, instead she sees Maeve Riordan. Reeling from this revelation, she grabs her keys and runs from the house.

Sitting in her car under the Oak tree near the location of their first circle, a sobbing Morgan says a spell calling Cal to her. He comforts her while she sobs and tells him how she should have known because of how different she was from the rest of her family. He tells her he loves her and that he has wanted to be with her from the beginning. After returning home to an empty house and a locked filing cabinet, Morgan takes to the computer to do a search about her birth mother. She finds a family tree with Wiccan terminology and dates and locations that fit what she knows about her birth mother, but the site shuts down before she can learn much more that the date and location of her death. Morgan goes to the library archives and finds an article about her mother’s body being found in a burned down barn. During a trip to Practical Magick, Morgan learns most of her birth mothers’ story from Alyce, one of the shopkeepers.

After another fight with her parents and Aunt about not being told she was adopted, Morgan leaves to find comfort with Cal again, this time though she finds his mother. Selene invites Morgan in for hot coco and offers to do a two-person calming circle with her to help her with her emotions. She takes Morgan to her sanctuary where she holds her coven’s circles. The circle helps calm her and Selene teaches Morgan some rune magick. She leaves feeling better than she has in days.

The rift between Morgan and Bree has never been worse and Bree is now teaming up with Raven to bad-mouth Morgan. Beth, Ravens best friend tells Cal and the coven that she is quitting Wicca and wants nothing to do with it anymore. After she leaves, Bree and Raven approach the coven and declare they too are quitting Cirrus and joining a new coven with another witch who they do not name.

When they have time alone, Cal tells Morgan about his father and how he left them when Cal was four, to be with another woman and to start a new family. He says he has a step-brother his age and two half-siblings from his father’s second family. Before Morgan leaves, he kisses her and calls her his "múirn beatha dán". She has never heard this term before and he tells her that it means "soulmate" and that they were destined to be together. He then gives her the pentacle necklace he has always worn as a token of his love and devotion to her.

Cirrus' next circle is the first without Bree, Raven, or Beth. Morgan's only remaining best friend Robbie comes in without glasses and believes Morgan has put another spell on him without his knowledge. Morgan swears that she didn't and Cal says that his now perfect vision is probably another result of the spelled facewash Morgan had previously given him. He tells her that because she banished limitations at their first circle and did not set any limitations or restrictions on her facewash spell, it is continuing to fix imperfections on Robbie's face. As long as Robbie does not use it on any other part of his body and does not ingest it, this should be the last side effect. They continue with their circle and Morgan takes her energy and puts it into Jenna; a fellow coven member whose asthma has been bad lately, and opens her lungs and airways so she can breathe.

Morgan's Parents finally sit down at tell her what they know about her birth parents and her adoption. They tell her after trying for years for children they finally applied for adoption, and a few months later on a rainy night an acquaintance calls them up with a child who needed a private adoption. They took her in and a week later read about two people found burned to death in a barn. The bodies were identified as Maeve Riordan and Angus Bramson, the people listed on her birth certificate. The barn had been locked from the outside and set ablaze with gasoline.

Her father continued to search for information for a few years even going to the town where Maeve was from in Ireland. The town was almost completely gone. Some locals from the next town over told him that Ballynigel was a town of witches and that a large and powerful coven had lived there until a dark waterless wave had risen up and destroyed the town and everyone who lived in it. They said that if anyone had made it out alive, they would be hunted down and killed. Her birthparents had been murdered just three years after her ancestral home and family coven had been decimated. After learning all of this, Morgan's parents were afraid that someone would come after her if they knew about her so they decided not to tell her about any of it.

Bree hits Morgan in the face with a volleyball, breaking her nose after she sees her wearing Cal's necklace. Morgan decides to try and confront Bree and hash everything out, but her plan goes array when Bree and Raven drive out to the cemetery that the Samhain circle was held at. Morgan hides and watches the girls when another young woman around their age shows up. The wind is loud and Morgan can only hear fragments of what the girls are talking about, but what she does hear makes her worry that they are planning something dark and dangerous. 

The next day she plans on telling Cal about what she saw and heard but gets distracted making out with Cal in the back of her car. When he asks her if he will be her first, she asks him about what Bree told her and if it was true. He tells her that he never slept with Bree because he was already falling for her and then shows her how to call magick to themselves in intimate situations. While in the back seat Cal notices Morgan's birthmark on her side under her arm, she said that she has always had it and that she loves it even more now because it is rose pink and shaped like an Athame; a Wiccan ceremonial dagger.

While preparing to go to the movies for a triple date with two of the other coven couples; Jenna and Mat along with Sharron and Ethan, they decide to hang out and wait at Cal's house. His mother Selene is having a circle later in the evening and there are already people over. Morgan wants to thank Selene for helping her the other day and they go into the sanctuary to see her. While talking, the young woman who met Raven and Bree in the cemetery comes over and Selene introduces her as Sky Eventide. Sky then introduces the man with her as Hunter Niall. Instantly warry of Hunter, Morgan feels an immediate need to flee and reminds Cal about the movie, but before they can leave Selene asks if she can speak to Cal.

Waiting in the hall for Cal Morgan hears voices coming toward her and recognizes them as Hunter and Sky. Her reaction to Hunter scares her as she has never had this strong of a reaction to anyone before, not even when she first met Cal. She leans against a wall trying to hide when she almost falls through a hidden doorway. Wanting to keep away from Hunter and Sky, Morgan shuts herself inside what looks like to be a private study. Fascinated by the all of the magical items and books, Morgan starts exploring even though she knows she should leave. While browsing, Morgan feels a compelling tingle when she runs her hand over a red book high on one of the shelves. After bringing it down Morgan discovers that the book that called to her was her mother’s lost Book of Shadows. She starts reading it losing track of time and ends up being found by Cal and an upset Selene. 

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 My opinion on this book was that I absolutely love it!

 This is book two of the series and I have re-read it a few times over the years. The series is still a favorite of mine. Reading this I felt I understood Morgan. Our situations were nothing alike, but our personalities were similar, shy girls who didn't stand out compared to their beautiful friends. Never dating anyone or being on anyone's radar. Having a religious family who didn't understand my interests and some of whom would "disown" me if I even questioned my religion in front of them. 

I connected with Morgan and this series immediately, and even before reading it I was fascinated with Wicca. All I ever wanted to be for Halloween was a witch, I loved movies like Teen Witch (1989) and Practical Magic (1998), and Charmed (1998-2006) was my absolute favorite TV show ever. 

*Side note; my wonderful husband bought me the Charmed Complete collection BOS Edition for our first wedding anniversary. It's so pretty and I love it so much! He is the best husband anyone could ask for!

I've shared this series and my love for it with a few close people over the years. One of my younger sisters who I knew was openminded and very much a bibliophile like me, and who I knew wouldn't shun me for reading a fictional story about Wicca, my best friend after adulthood who eventually became my sister-in-law, and finally my husband’s uncle who is a practicing Wiccan. Everyone I have recommended it too has loved it and I’m so glad I got to share a part of something I love with the people I love.

Knowing what happens in the rest of the books and how I connected to them, as well as the lessons I took away from reading them, I find it hard to write an unbiased review without including things that haven't happened yet. There are characters I love and ones that I now can't stand, that many people wouldn’t understand yet at this point why I feel the way I do. All I can say is that this series has remained one of my absolute favorite series for years and I am enjoying re-reading and summarizing them for this blog.