666 Park Avenue (666 Park Avenue, #1)

by Gabriella Pierce

[Leah]

When I first heard about 666 Park Avenue, I was a little bit confused. A chick lit book about witches? That’s a new one for me, possibly a new one for a lot of chick lit lovers, to be fair. However, it still appealed to me. I liked the sound of it, and I was interested to read about these New York socialite witches. It was made even better by the absolutely stunning UK cover. It’s a very dark cover but the gold highlights really make it pop and it’s one of my favourite covers. It’s so mysterious, but so beautiful that you can’t help but stare at it. So I decided to give the novel a read, and boy, am I glad I did.

As well as being a novel, 666 Park Avenue is also being turned into a TV series. It seems as if it’s going to be a lot different to the novel – focusing on hotel owners, and there doesn’t appear to be a Malcolm anywhere, but that also made me want to read the book because I will inevitably watch the show and I will inevitably want to read the book first because that’s what I do. I prefer to read the original book as the author presented it, rather than how it was modified for a TV audience (not always a bad thing, either). I quite easily got into 666 Park Avenue. I enjoyed meeting Jane and reading about her life in Paris, enjoyed reading about her job, enjoyed reading about how Malcolm swept her off her feet, and how she ends up moving to New York.

It took a little bit of time to get to the nitty gritty of the novel – that being the witches, of course. Jane has always wondered why she seems to mess up electronics and light bulbs wherever she goes and it comes as some relief (and confusion) when she finds out she’s a witch. It gets even more complicated when Jane realises that the Doran clan, of which she’s about to marry into, are also witches and that, for some reason or another, Lynne the matriarch of the family is after Jane’s own magical abilities. We also meet Dee, and the Montague family, all who have abilities of sorts of their own. I found the witchy aspect fascinating. I’m not generally a big witch fan – except for Sabrina the Teenage Witch – and I more enjoy the spells rather than the folklore and history, but I liked how Pierce presented it. There were bits that were perhaps a bit dull – particularly when Jane is learning about witches, but it was necessary to the novel to be fair, and it’s just a personal opinion that I find it a bit boring.

I enjoyed 666 Park Avenue very much. The pace starts off fairly sedate, but as soon as the witches come into it, the pace speeds up tenfold and it’s like an action-book. The novel was just so engrossing. I found myself struggling to put it down, even though I was desperate for sleep. Once the book gets going, it really gets going. I found the antagonism between Jane and Lynne to be brilliant and I can’t wait to see more of the two butting heads in the future novels. But mostly, it was the secondary characters I liked. I loved Jane’s new friends – Dee, Harris and Maeve, they really added to the story and I was a bit sad Harris and Maeve disappeared somewhat towards the end (though it was necessary) and I really hope they’ll reappear in the second novel as they were wonderful characters and I loved the chemsitry between Harris and Jane. Jane was a fabulous character, I really loved her. Malcolm confused me. I found him sooooo charming, and found it hard to believe the things Malcolm had done. The novel was just excellent. I thoroughly recommend the novel and I can’t wait to read book 2 and then book 3 as it’s a fab new series.