Book Review: Persuasion by Martina Boone

Image (c) Simon Pulse

Persuasion (The Heirs of Watson Island #2) by Martina Boone
Release Date: October 27th, 2015
Book Format: Library book
Rating: Four stars

Grieving the death of her godfather and haunted by her cousin Cassie’s betrayal, Barrie returns from a trip to San Francisco to find the Watson plantation under siege. Ghost hunters hope to glimpse the ancient spirit who sets the river on fire each night, and reporters chase rumors of a stolen shipment of Civil War gold that may be hidden at Colesworth Place. The chaos turns dangerous as Cassie hires a team of archeologists to excavate beneath the mansion ruins, because more is buried there than treasure.

A stranger filled with magic arrives at Watson’s Landing claiming that the key to the Watson and Beaufort gifts—and the Colesworth curse—also lies beneath the mansion. With a mix of threats and promises, the man convinces Barrie and Cassie to cast a spell there at midnight. But what he conjures may have deadly consequences.

While Barrie struggles to make sense of the escalating peril and her growing and forbidden feelings for Eight Beaufort, it’s impossible to know whom to trust and what to fight for. Millions of dollars and the fate of the founding families is at stake. Now Barrie must choose between what she feels deep in her heart and what will keep Watson’s Landing safe.

 I fell in love with the first book, Compulsion, and I'm very happy to say that its sequel didn't fail to please me either. I wish it hadn't taken me forever to read it though but, hopefully, my reading streak is back and ready to stay.

Barrie's changed since she first moved into Watson's Landing. She's still dealing with the aftermath of a family's death and almost facing death herself after being buried in a hidden underground route. It's probably surprising to her that she's even still alive so, despite it all, she's grateful to still be around. But things are getting stranger and stranger... and it's beginning to be even difficult to trust what she sees and hears - including her boyfriend (or self-proclaimed?) Eight.

There are loads of unanswered secrets that many people are refusing to give. A strange man, Obadiah, is more than willing to assist Barrie to find these secrets, and he's also willing to help take the curse off of the Watson's... or the Beaufort. It's almost a miracle - this means that Eight would be able to live his life without any baggage weighing on his mind. Despite that, she's been warned: Do not inform Eight of this revelation. To make things trickier, Barrie's forced to confront the one person who almost sent her six foot under: Cassie, which means she has to betray her boyfriend's family even further by protecting her enemy's name from going to jail.

Despite these conflicts, the whole picture is so much more complicated than she realized as she pierces together the families' past and how they intertwine with her future.

I felt like the pacing was a bit slow throughout the whole book but, in this case, I didn't feel like that was a bad thing. I felt like Persuasion could've easily been a shorter book but I really like that it spent time processing all of this new information with Barrie. The book didn't even reach towards the ending that I was hoping for but it was written in such a way that I didn't mind? I won't spoil anything about that, but it'll definitely add to the tension that will (hopefully) continue in the sequel. (I don't even have to wait forever for the third book - yay!).

We also got to spend a bit of time learning more about Cassie. Not too much in depth, since we're still seeing her from Barrie's point of view, but we definitely get to see that Cassie's not as strong as we thought she was. It doesn't mean that she immediately gets forgiven for trapping Barrie and Eight underground, but we learn that there's so much more than meets the eye. We get to see her human side and I really loved that.

This is also the first time where I found myself so unsure about other characters' motives. Everyone (specifically Eight and Seven) have good reasons for their actions but they seem so against doing what others want them to do that it ends up being a constant circle. It's hard to say who's right or wrong which makes things that much more baffling for me. I'm surprised that Barrie managed to keep her head on straight (or maybe she just hid it well).

Overall - characters through the story are focused mostly on themselves (not in a selfish manner) for their own goals but they aren't really willing to compromise. It ends up being like a tangled mess of yarn. I'm curious to see how it'll unravel in Illusion.

This was a really awesome book and I'm glad it proved itself just as good as the first book. The story arranges itself as a well thought-out maze when you pull away to look at the whole picture. It's when you're forced to enter the maze at the ground level that you realize just how many twists and turns there are in every corner.

Highly recommended!