Rating: 
Summary: Down right enthralling! You gotta read it!
Review: Cassie Blake moved with her mother to New Salem. Her mother said they were moving in with Cassie's grandmother, at #12 Crowhaven Road, to take care of her. However, Cassie quickly learned that her mother and grandmother brought Cassie to New Salem for a different reason. Everyone, adult or student, feared the eleven people who belonged to The Club, aka The Circle. All members of the Circle lived on Crowhaven Road. Some members were nice. Some members were almost evil. Kori was suppose to join the Circle on her fifteenth birthday. Instead, she died. Currently there were eleven members, but a Circle was worthless without 7 girls and 5 boys. One more female was needed, Cassie. Cassie had no idea how dangerous being initiated into the Circle would be. Or how the evil ones in the Circle would snare her in a web of deceit and betrayal! ***** A stunning beginning to the trilogy! Down right enthralling! *****
Rating:
Summary: You have to read the whole trilogy
Review: Cassie was well situated and happy in her home in California, until her mother moved her back to her childhood home of New Salem, Massachusetts. There she is intrigued by "The Club", the mysterious in crowd at her school. Before long, she learns these beautiful girls and mysterious guys are actually the new generation of an ancient coven of witches...and she is to be initiated into their exclusive group. Being a witch is a wonderful new experience, but something sinister is stirring in New Salem that threatens the coven... This book simply rocks, as do the 2 books that follow. The characters are very interesting: Diana, the beautiful, pure coven leader; Faye; the dark, sexy opposite(and cousin)of Diana; Adam, Diana's boyfriend who Cassie is inexplicably attracted to; and many others: the fierce Deborah, sensual Suzan, intellectual Melanie, sweet Laurel, wild Henderson twins, cold Nick...THe story is awesome and suspenseful, and the words ring true despite the outlandish plot. A strong reccomendation for most teenage girls who like the idea of the supernatural, or just a good read. WARNING: If you buy this book, you will have to buy The Captive and The Power as well.
Rating:
Summary: Love that L. J. Smith
Review: Cassie's life is turned upside down when her mother decides they are moving in with her grandmother. Cassie must leave all her friends behind and start at a new school in the town of New Salem. She has trouble fitting in at first. A group of witches have decided to make her life a living hell. Her luck changes when she makes friends with the leader of the coven. Diana is the best friend that Cassie could ever hope for, there's just one problem... she's in love with her boyfriend! I loved pretty much everything in this book. The characters, plot, and romance were all great. I look forward to learning about more of the side character in future books. I usually like the first book in all of L. J. Smith's series the best but I think this series can only get better. L. J. Smith is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors and I want to read every book she's written.
Rating:
Summary: WiCkEd!!!!!!!!
Review: This book is abosolutely great! I've read this a week ago and the two book followed. It's an awesome trilogy and it's my favorite now. LJ Smith is an ezcellent writer.
*****Cassie Blake didn't want to move to New Salem, Mass. and have to leave her home towm in California. But her mom told her they have to because her mother(Cassie's Grandma) is sick. When Cassie had a vacation with her mom a week in Mass. before they really moved there, before her mom broke the news, Cassie met a mysterious guy with red-wine hair. She thought she saw a silver-cord connection between them. Cassie moved into the new town, and thought that she would never see the handsome stranger again, but when she enter the new school, she did see him. He belonged to a club and had a girlfriend, Diana. Diana was nice to Cassie, and Cassie felt warmth toward her. But Diana's cousin, Faye, was cold and mean and nasty to her. Cassie met the rest of the gang: tough-girl Deborah, boy-crazy Suzan, weird Sean, nice Laurel, interlectual Melanie, crazy-and-wild Chris and Doug Henderson, Faye's-wannabe Kori Henderson, cold-and-distant Nick, who had a warm side toward Cassie that no one know of. Cassie became Diana's adopted-sister but feeling like an outcast compare to the closeknitted club members. The club was already full until one of the club member died and they needed another person, and Cassie's it. She discover that she's a witch and the club is not and ordinary one, it's a witch club, where all members are witches. Cassie felt torn because of Adam being her favorite person's boy friend. She felt that Adam's her soulmate but because Diana that Cassie have to back off. Will she ever fit into such a new surrounding? Would she be accepted by her new clubmates?
Rating: 
Summary: "Sky and Sea, Keep Harm From Me"
Review: Fans of L. J. Smith know what to expect from her before they open the books, and "The Secret Circle" trilogy is no exception. A young woman blossoming into adulthood, a handsome "knightly" love interest (often seeming too good to be true), a darker, more mysterious bad-boy to balance the 'good boy' that the protagonist is equally attracted to, an angelic best friend, and a beautiful, sensual female villain. In terms of storylines, a supernatural mystery will be mingled in with the usual troubles of adolescence, with a hefty dose of the coming of age narrative, a forbidden romance, a series of murders and other little subplots thrown in for good measure. Yet as repetitive as Smith's books sometimes appear, their popularity and appeal cannot be denied. The author has a good ear for human connections and emotions, and can keep a story rolling along nicely, dropping clues to the mystery as she goes and juggling several threads of narrative without letting any fall to the way side or having any become un-neccessary or boring. And in terms of keeping her regular formula fresh, "The Secret Circle" is probably the trilogy that does so most effectively: managing to pull together many different plots and ideas into a coherent, interesting whole. Cassie Blake is holidaying with her mother in Cape Cod, putting up with Portia Bainbridge and having a remarkable experience with a young man who she rescues from some local thugs, when her mother breaks her some drastic news: they are not going back home at the end of break, but returning to her mother's hometown New Salem, to live with Cassie's ailing and estranged grandmother. Life in the small town is not to Cassie's advantage: the other students do not simply ignore her, but *avoid* her, nasty surprises are left in her locker, and even the teachers seem to treat her with suspicion. To top it all off, a strange group of teenagers led by the beautiful Faye Chamberlain seem to have it in for our Cassie. Yet it seems that Cassie is somehow linked to this odd club - they all live on the same road, and she is eventually befriended by the benevolent, lovely Diana Meade, cousin to Faye and leader of the group. From here she soon discovers that there are two opposing factions in town: the ordinary, often hostile 'out-siders', and the Club: a group of young witches who are the descendants of the real witches at Salem. And of course, it is here that things get really complicated for young Cassie, with the advent of three major catalysts: the return of Diana's beloved boyfriend, who just happens to be the boy Cassie saved at Cape Cod and has fallen in love with; the discovery of a crystal skull that she suspects holds some evil power, and the death of one of the soon-to-be initiated witches, that leaves a place open in the coven for Cassie... It's hardly strenuous reading, but Smith's myriad of plots and details come together in her most worth-while series of books. Though the main characters are hardly realistic (Faye in particular is a bit over-the-top - see her little performance in English class), they are *interesting*, as are their relationships to each other. Or should I say their *conflicts* with each other, as the struggles between opposing factions of the coven, the coven with the out-siders, the members of the love-triangle, and the entire cast with the malevolent black force are compulsive reading. It does slip a few times, usually when Smith gets too caught up in her own cleverness, for instance, she seems to be very proud of the phrase "devastatingly witty remark" as she uses it no less than four times! Furthermore, it was painful to read the truly awful poems that Smith describes as "good". No self respecting author would ever blow their own trumpet over lines such as "But you'll die smiling/Then you'll be part of the fire too". And as always, her love scenes are just plain silly - are we really supposed to believe that Cassie is in love with Adam after just one meeting?! So basically, Smith's books do have an expiry date for older readers - anyone over the age of fifteen will probably find them silly, but if you're gift-searching for book-loving female "tweens", then L. J. Smith is a good choice, and "The Secret Circle: "The Initiation" her most entertaining read - including of course "The Captive" and "The Power".
Rating:
Summary: The Secret Circle trilogy is the best ever!
Review: The Initiation is just the first installment in an absoulutely compelling and exciting trilogy. It's just too good to describe and it gets even better in the second and third book! The characters are great and well developed. Unlike LJ Smith's other books, you will fall in love with BOTH the main male characters, Adam and Nick. You will fall in love with Adam in this book particularly, but when Nick's character starts to really develop in the second book onwards, you feel torn between the two, just like Cassie, the main character, is. Cassie is a great female lead, you feel like you're her. The love triangle between Cassie, the honest and strong-willed Adam and the sexy and brooding Nick is great. And although Adam is good, unlike other good guys in LJ Smith books, he's more...strong-minded, he's a leader but he's also mysterious and enigmatic, particularly in the beginning. All the rest of the characters in the coven are great, they all develop as the story goes on and you almost wish they were your own friends: biker-girl Deborah, ditzy Suzan, wise Melanie, friendly Laurel, sly Sean, wild Doug and Chris(the Henderson twins)and of course fiesty Faye and gentle Diana. My one complaint is Diana, you will find that she is such a dumb, wussy goody-goody! But maybe I just think that cos' I'm a lot like Faye. Anyway, this book and the other two in the trilogy are super! I'm a huuuuge LJ fan and I've got all her stuff, and before reading this trilogy I didn't think she could come with anything even better than her other books, but boy was I proven wrong! The Secret Circle is so good, that you'll be really upset when you reach the very last page of the very last book, you'll want more! I do, I want to find out what happens afterwards, with Adam and Cassie, and everything else. I hope there's gonna be a fourth book! You just have to read this trilogy, even if you're not into LJ Smith's stuff, you'll still love this. You'll get so drawn into the story that you'll actually feel like you're Cassie and that you actually talk to and meet the other characters and that you are in the actual place, New salem! THE ABSOLUTE BEST! Anyone who wants to talk about this and other LJ Smith books e-mail me, Candy, at: vampireraven@chickmail.com! I'd love to hear from you!
Rating: 
Summary: Delicious, traditional L.J.Smith
Review: The Secret Circle carries LJS's mark all the way. You've got the strong female lead ... the beautiful (and wicked) enchantress ... the equally beautiful "good fairy" type ... the dark, brooding bad boy (the highlight of every LJS book). You just can't get enough of the woman's work - even if some of it sounds awfully similar to her other books. In The Initiation, it is exactly as the title suggests: Cassie is initiated into the Secret Circle, a coven of witches in New Salem, after many trials. Then she realizes that the guy she'd been obsessing over for the entire summer it seems like is her new best friend's boyfriend. Worse, the real "witch" of the witches - Faye, reminiscent of Blaise and Maya - finds out that Cassie's messed with her almost-sister's guy - and she starts to blackmail her. Meanwhile, an old evil has been released... For some good old-fashioned LJS delight, read this!
Rating:
Summary: Divination - The Initiation
Review: It is a good book for young people who are interested in learning more about the craft , Although it isn't a lesson book . It does show the mystery and intrigue of the craft . Although some of the on goings are a little far fetched it rings true enough . I have shared the book with a younger sister and she thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm sure you will too !
Blessed Be , Ravenwaver
Rating:
Summary: Secret Circle Trilogy is awesome!
Review: The Secret Circle trilogy centers around 16 year old Cassie Blake. Cassie moves with her mother into her grandmother's home on Crowhaven Road. On Cassie's first day she learns about The Club, the mysterious group of youths who make up the school's "in crowd" and they are also the other inhabitants on Crowhaven Road. Then one day she is rescued from the clutches of Faye by Diana, The Club's leader. Cassie is drawn to Diana's gentle spirit. Then one night Cassie finds out the truth. The Club is actually a coven of witches and Diana's boyfriend is the mysterious boy Cassie fell in love with that summer. But as Cassie is drawn deeper into the coven she finds out that in there lies secrets and a deep web of deceit and blackmail. Great beginning ot the Trilogy. L.J. weaves another magickal tale.
Rating:
Summary: great read
Review: I love this book enough that I decided to reread it, and I didn't enjoy it any less this time around. The group of teens in the Club are fun to read about, although, in some cases, a little black-and-white (Diana is very Good, Faye is very Bad). There's the usual romance that you find in L. J. Smith's books - Cassie loves a guy she can't have because he's the boyfriend of someone she respects. I enjoyed the forbidden romance parts of the book, as well as the parts where Cassie is trying to adjust in a school where no one seems to like her or want to help her. I think The Secret Circle Trilogy is one of L. J. Smith's best trilogies, and I really enjoy the first book in it.
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