Blaise and Thea are cousins raised more like sisters, and witches. Blaise likes to use her powers to play with human boys and make them helplessly in love with her. These actions frequently cause the two to be kicked out of boarding school after boarding school, so they finally return to Las Vegas and the home of their grandmother (and the unofficial headquarters of Night World Witches, led by said grandmother). Blaise is soon up to her old tricks, but unfortunately her new target is the boy Thea suspects might mean more to her than anyone ever... her soulmate.
This volume of the series brings in the witch culture of the Night World and introduces us to the differences between them and the patriarchal vampires. However, many witches are just as dangerous than the 'people are food' camp.
So far the volumes in this series stand alone and have few overlapping characters, but themes are developing and movement is progressing toward an eventual showdown. ( )

Young adult witch story that is quite well done and I wouldn't hesitate recommending it to the young adult. Orphaned cousins, born hours apart are raised together by a number of their family members, frequently moved because, Blaise, the older girl, loves to " play with human boys" causing the girls to be expelled from school after school. Thea meets a human boy the first day and immediately connects, but falling in love with humans is strictly forbidden. Good, fast pased, well read story. ( )

The third entry in L.J. Smith's Night World series, about a hidden society of vampires, witches and shape-shifters, Spellbinder shifts focus after the first two vampire-centered novels, concentrating instead on the witches of this secret world. When Thea and Blaise Harman - first cousins and witches - come to stay with their grandmother in Las Vegas, they soon find themselves involved in a love triangle with a human boy at their high school. Thea struggles with the knowledge that Eric is her soulmate, while reckless Blaise plots to separate the two, and put an end to such heretical notions...

Smith continues her world-building here, laying out the foundational myth of the Night World, in which the lamia (vampires) are descended from Maya, and the hearth-women (witches) from her sister Hellewise. The two main witch circles - Circle Midnight and Circle Twilight - are discussed, and brief mention is made of the mysterious Circle Daybreak, which will play so decisive a role in future stories. Like Daughters of Darkness before it, characters initially seen in Secret Vampire recur, while other characters introduced here turn up later in the series.

The Night World books are aimed at teenage girls, and nowhere is that more apparent than in their reliance on the "Romeo and Juliet" motif. But despite the melodramatic flourishes, the theme of forbidden love works very well in the context of each story. Smith understands the appeal of having a "soulmate," and the strength of young emotions: "The thing was, it was terrible and wonderful. She felt awkward and tremendously safe at once, scared to death and not scared of anything. And what she wanted was so simple. If he only felt the same, everything would be all right."

As mentioned in my review of Daughters of Darkness, I prefer this series to the more current (and more popular) Twilight saga. Smith's characters are a fairly complex mix of good and bad, and her girls are smart, strong-willed, and principled. The recurring feminist themes, and the emphasis on tolerance for other world views, make for exactly the kind of “neo-pagan” literature decried by the religious right. High praise, in my book... ( )

This is another solid entry in L.J. Smith's Night World series. It picks up the feminist thread of the previous entry, Daughters of Darkness. Here, again, are a bevy of strong, capable heroines, this time witches working in a matrilineal society. Thea the good witch yearns for human soulmate Eric. He's bland as tofu, but that doesn't really matter much in terms of the plot because she spends most of the novel working spells that even her crone relatives can't do. Initially, Smith seems to be setting us up for a rivalry between Thea and her bitchy witch cousin Blaise, but Blaise redeems herself at the end, proving that ties between "sisters" are even stronger than the laws of the Night World.My reading choice in this book series came under question recently. I had a party--I laughingly read one of the more pornographic scenes of the first novel to my friends. They responded that the books were awful, bad as the slush pile (I differ from most MFAs in my opinion of the slush pile, but that's another story entirely).So I'd like to say, categorically, that I think that writers like Smith are doing something worthwhile when they create series genre fiction, no matter how cheesy it might seem to an adult literary audience. Though the prose is simplistic at times, it has a sense of immediacy; it does its job without digression or distraction. And more, Smith seems to know, and speak directly to, her audience--barely-disguised sex scenes might seem coy to adults, but I remember being an early teenager, and I remember how squeamish real sex scenes made me feel. Instead of going into Blumeish detail, Smith presents erotically charged scenes in language that isn't alienating to her audience. What's more, these scenes are always consensual and the women involved are treated with respect. That's more than I can say for most romance novels.And, the deeper I get into the Night World series, the more prominent the feminist themes become. Although the first novel defaults to romance-novel heroines and women-in-refrigerator stereotypes, the second and third present the female characters as strong, independent, more capable than their male counterparts, and utterly admirable. When held up to the female ideal presented by her contemporary peers (*cough* Meyer *cough*), Smith's women seem especially shining.So the Night World series might be a tad trashy--yes, they're love stories about vampires and witches. But Smith does some really admirable things in her writing--talking to teenage girls in their own language about their aspirations and fears--and she's largely successful at it. Giggle-inducing or not, I'd recommend her without hesitation. ( )

Thea and Blaise are sisters light and dark. Thea is all that is calm and peaceful and Blaise is beautiful and deadly. Together they are the last witches in their line. After being expelled from their fourth (or fifth?) school after Blaise bewitched a boy into burning down the music room Thea dreads starting again in a new place. However, when an unexpected encounter with a rattlesnake serves to introduce her to Eric, a human boy, things for Thea start getting more out of control than usual. Will Thea be able to keep Blaise from wreaking deadly havoc on their new school and with Eric?

Spellbinder is the third book of the Night World series. As a whole so far this has been an enjoyable series about vampires and with this volume we enter the world of witches as well. I did find that this story seemed to drag a little in places more so than the first two, but it was only briefly and it quickly got back on track and very exciting towards the end. I liked Eric's steadiness in everything that happened and really enjoyed Thea as well. I look forward to continuing on with the Night World books in the future. ( )