Published June 23rd 2011 by Charlotte Abel (first published June 17th 2011)
ISBN13 2940012884688
OVERVIEW:
While other girls are wearing push-up bras, Channie Belks is trying to hide the fact she's a witch. Sorta hard to do after her parents slap a chastity curse on her for flirting with "dirty-minded, non-magical, city-boys." She can't even walk by a hot guy without zapping him. There's a way to break the curse; but one mistake could kill her. It's not worth the risk ... until she meets Josh. Suddenly, the threat of death isn't such a deal-breaker.
Summary
Sixteen year old Channie Kerns leads an idyllic life of seclusion and magic deep in the Ozark Mountains ... until her family is forced to flee for their lives.
They leave everything and everyone behind to start over in Louisville, Colorado. Magic is forbidden while they are in hiding, but Channie can't resist the temptation to enchant a group of local boys. When her overbearing parents catch her flirting with these "sex-crazed, non-magical delinquents," they slap a chastity spell on her to protect her virtue.
The spell is triggered by lust, so just navigating the halls at her new school is an ordeal. She can't even touch a boy she's attracted to without blasting him with a jolt of magical energy that feels like a taser.
When Channie falls in love with Josh Abrim, a BMX racer with dangerous secrets of his own, she rebels against her parents and turns to dark and forbidden magic to break the chastity spell ... with disastrous results.
Excerpt
“Channie?” Abby's voice woke her up. “Momma and Daddy wanna see you downstairs.”
Channie yawned and opened her eyes. Abby was standing in the doorway, a candle in one hand, her flashlight — a birthday gift from Aunt Wisdom — in the other. How long had she been asleep? “Am I in trouble?”
“I don’t know. They was holed up in their room when me and the trips got back from the park. I ain’t heard no hollering anyways.” Abby tucked her flashlight under her arm to light the candle then squatted down and handed it to Channie. “What’d you do?”
“I didn’t do anything! Except talk to a few boys.”
“Oh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You want some advice, lil sis?”
Channie nodded.
“Don’t argue or interrupt, no matter what they say. Just let ‘em get it out of their systems. All you can do is pretend to repent, beg their forgiveness and hope they don’t curse you.”
Channie rolled her eyes. “Thanks a lot. That makes me feel so much better.”
Abby smiled and said, “You’re welcome,” without the least bit of sarcasm.
~***~
Momma and Daddy were in the parlor, sitting together on the sofa, holding hands in a rare display of unity.
Daddy said, “We got something to tell you, baby girl, and we want you to stay calm.”
His words were ominous enough, but when Momma and Daddy both raised their shields, Channie’s heart leapt into her throat. Daddy said, “Your momma and me—”
“Momma and I.”
Daddy usually laughed when Channie reflexively corrected his grammar — it was sort of a running joke between them — but this time he just sighed and said, “Your momma and I … we decided … oh, hell, there ain’t no easy way to break this to you.”
Momma snorted through her nose and said, “Daddy and I are changing your name.”
Channie’s mouth popped open. “What?”
“You heard me. We’re changing your power-name. Enchantment’s magic is too … seductive.”
“You want to change my name on account of them boys in the park? That ain’t fair.” When she got upset, Channie had a tendency to forget her schooling and regress to her native dialect. “Ever single one of them Empties come up to me and started talking. I didn’t do a dang thing to encourage ‘em.”
If Momma wasn’t such a sourpuss all the time, Channie would have thought they were pulling her leg. Folks took up to a year deciding on a baby’s name to be sure they found one that matched the child’s personality. Once given, a name wasn’t changed. Not even when it caused severe problems like … say … a gambling addiction that forced you to uproot your entire family and move them halfway across the country to keep ‘em from being murdered.
Channie’s heart thundered against her ribs. Enchantment’s magic surged and poured out of her, but with Momma and Daddy already shielded all it did was prove their point and drain Channie’s energy.
Momma and Daddy shared a look that was part regret, part pity and a hundred percent determined.
“Look, all I did was talk to a couple of boys. Abby's the one that went and got herself knocked up. If you want to change someone’s power-name, change hers. It ain’t fair to punish me for something she did!”
The lines around Momma’s eyes deepened. “We ain’t punishing nobody. We’re only trying to protect you. Be reasonable.”
“Reasonable? There’s nothing reasonable about any of this!”
Channie consciously slowed her breathing and unclenched her fists in an effort to calm herself. “You can’t change my power-name. It’s illegal.” She wasn’t sure about that, but if it wasn’t against the law, it should be.
Daddy leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “We made the mistake of naming your sister Abundance, and look what happened to her.”
Abby was sitting on the stairs, shoveling the last of Momma’s homemade cottage cheese into her mouth — straight out of the crock.
“Why do you think she had triplets?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the boys’ daddy has a multiplier power-name of some sort.”
The only thing Abby had ever said about her babies’ daddy was that he was an Empty — actually she’d used the polite term, Magically Disabled Person, instead of the derogatory slang that everyone else used — but no one in their right mind believed Savvy, Courage, and Zeal were sired by an Empty. Those boys were already too powerful to be Halfies. They couldn’t cast spells yet, but the way they instinctively tapped into their power-names proved they were gifted.
Daddy said, “It was Abby's magic that took what should’a been one baby and made three. That’s why them boys are identical.”
“I still don’t see what that has to do with—”
Daddy slammed the side of his fist into the threadbare armrest of the sofa, sending a puff of dust into the air. “We are living smack dab in the middle of nothing but magically disabled, immoral parasites.”
It wasn’t at all unusual for Daddy to get riled up when he started talking about the carnal nature of teen-aged boys. But Channie knew she was losing the argument when the vein on his forehead began to pulse and his voice climbed in pitch as well as volume.
“Every young man back home had to raise his shield around you if he didn’t want to fall under your spell. Empty boys don’t have the ability to shield themselves from your magic. Hell, they don’t even believe in magic. They ain’t gonna worry about what sort of curse I’ll slap on ‘em if they don’t keep their nasty hands to themselves!”
Daddy closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose. He lowered his voice and said, “Come here, baby girl,” then reached for Channie’s hands and pulled her closer, until her knees bumped his shins. The old sofa groaned as he shifted his weight from one hip to the other. Most people were considerably less intimidating when they were sitting down. Not Daddy.
He said, “You don’t have complete control over Enchantment’s power and we can’t afford to wait until you do. I know it’s not your fault and it’s not fair, but if we don’t change your name, you’ll draw those sex-crazed Empties to you like flies to honey.”
Channie couldn’t help feeling a bit of pleasure as she remembered how she’d charmed that entire crowd of boys. She bit the inside of her cheeks in an effort to keep from smiling, but that didn’t fool Daddy. Not one bit. He tightened his grip on Channie’s hands, squeezing the blood out of her fingers.
“That is not a good thing! I don’t want you to attract their attention. I don’t want you to enchant them. And I sure as hell don’t want you to wind up like your sister!”
Channie jerked her hands free and stumbled backwards, out of Daddy’s reach. “My power-name is not going to get me pregnant!”
Sometime during the argument, Abby had gotten up off the stairs. She was leaning against the arched opening that divided the entryway from the parlor with the crock of cottage cheese cradled in one arm like a baby. She licked both sides of her spoon then said, “Channie’s right. Her power-name ain’t the problem...”
Abby wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but Channie was desperate. She’d take all the help she could get.
“…It’s her firm, perky breasts, tiny waist and soft round hips you need to worry about. Y’all should try to find a way to fatten her up. I ain’t had so much as one fella pinch my ass since I put on so much weight.”
Channie glared at Abby, then shifted her gaze to Daddy. He stared right back at her — calm, focused and unblinking — like a bobcat stalking a robin. Channie refused to break eye-contact. It was dangerous to challenge Daddy, but she refused to give up without a fight. “I have a brain. I’m not going to let some pretty-boy sweet-talk his way into my pants!”
Abby scraped the bottom of the ceramic crock with her spoon, setting Channie’s teeth on edge. “Oh, believe me, ‘lil sis. They don’t do it by talking. It’s their hands you need to watch out for. Well, that and their—”
Abby's mouth slammed shut, her face turned purple and her eyes looked like they were about to pop clean out of her head. Momma’s no-speak spell wouldn’t last much longer, but it might be Channie’s only opportunity to get out of this mess. She took advantage of the distraction and used every bit of energy in her power-well in a desperate attempt to enchant Momma while her shield was down.
Daddy repelled Channie’s magic with so much force it knocked her on her butt. She expected him to come after her with his belt for trying to use strong magic on Momma, but he just put a hand on Momma’s knee and gave it a little shake. “That girl’s too smart for her own good. If we’re not careful, she’ll twist our good intentions into something else entirely. Her new name has to be specific so it will work exactly the way we want it to. We need to think of something better than Purity.”
Purity? That’s what they’d planned to name her? Purity? Losing Enchantment was bad enough, but if they saddled her with a name like Purity and sent her off to public school with a bunch of Empties that didn’t understand the purpose of a power-name, they might as well just put a bullet through her brain right now and end her misery.
Momma said, “If you have any better ideas, let’s hear ‘em.”
“Well … how about Ugly. Or Repulsive?”
Momma brushed Daddy’s hand off her knee. “Do you want her to be an outcast?”
Daddy leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “Better an outcast than an unwed mother.”
“We agreed on Purity. There’s no better name to keep her chaste.”
“What about Chastity?”
Channie cringed, waiting for Momma to curse Daddy for cracking a dirty joke.
But Momma just nodded her head and said, “Perfect.”
“What? No! You can’t name me Chastity — not when our last name is Belks!”
Bio:
Charlotte Abel was born and raised in Oklahoma where she met her soulmate, Pete. She chased him to Boulder, Colorado and finally convinced him they were meant to be together forever. They've raised three kids, two ferrets, three dogs and countless hamsters -- and are still happily married.She's in love with "real" life and paranormal romance. When she's not reading or writing, Charlotte enjoys hiking, bicycling and primitive archery (although she's never shot at anything other than a target!)The final book of The Channie Series, "Finding Valor," should be available by Christmas.
Enchantment 
Taken
My Review
I found myself another favorite paranormal romance. I loved this book. Channie is cute and funny, and I love her feisty spirit. I like how she doesn’t take any crap from anyone, especially her retard of parents who change her name to Chasity, and basically made it a curse. As her and her family are witches that they call Mages in this book. Their name is their power, hers was Enchantment, which makes people like her, and adore her, Her dad freaks when some Empties (non magics) pay too much attention to her, (boys of course)
They end up having to leave Arkansas and the rest of her family, since her day got himself into some major trouble. So they moved to Colorado and decide to live with the non-magics. This is where Channie meets Josh, who I really like; he is a true friend, and more to Channie. She gets teased right away, as her name is now Chasity Belks (they also changed their last name) and well, that is too close to Chasity Belt, lol, Poor girl, and not to mention, any guys to “lust” after her, they get a zap like a taser, and if they touch her, even worse.
It’s a great read, and Channie and Josh really try everything to reverse this curse her parents have put on her. What her parents didn’t expect was Channie became stronger them they are, and can’t push her around or give her a whipping anymore. (which is so wrong in the first place)
I loved the twist near the end, it was not expected at all, and I loved it. I wont be telling you, but it was awesome.
I do not want to give too much away, so wont say too much more, but will say, that this is a touching, sad, funny, exciting story. I can’t wait to read book 2 Taken. I need to know what happens, like now, lol.
I highly recommend this book and series. Its great for all ages, not just the young.
5 out of 5 stars.
I was provided this book from the author for my honest review.
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