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Most of the previous Charmed novels have involved one or more of the Halliwell sisters falling for a new guy, and The Gypsy Enchantment is no exception.

After having criticised some of the previous novels in the series for their dodgy continuity (especially Haunted By Desire), I was pleasantly surprised to see that The Gypsy Enchantment strikes the right balance between not contradicting anything we've seen on TV without having the author feel the need to 'prove' that they've watched the show by throwing in loads of unnecessary continuity references.

Apart from correctly giving Prue the power of astral projection, The Gypsy Enchantment is also tied into the TV series more than the Charmed novels, with the return of the girls' annoying neighbour Jenny, a brief appearance by Dan and Prue having left Bucklands (which, since she actively uses her astral projection, is absolutely correct).

Shooting a new photographic assignment, Prue visits a circus that's in town and, this being Charmed, her sisters tag along as well.  Prue quickly falls for the charms of Ivan the gypsy violinist while an old fortune-teller warns off Piper and Phoebe has a vision of Piper being strangled by Ivan.

As usual with Charmed, there's an awful lot of running around, but while the jiggle factor might make these scenes more watchable on TV, they don't exactly add a lot to a novel.  Jenny did her getting into trouble act in The Devil's Music and she doesn't do a lot here apart from her mere presence meaning that the sisters have to return home to drop her off before they can discuss what's going on and then returning to the circus.

So far the Charmed novels have generally avoided simply having a demon show up in San Francisco only to be offed by the Charmed Ones, and the circus setting could have worked well on screen with a variety of interesting characters.  The true nature of the threat would have probably been better on screen as well, allowing eagle eyed viewers to guess what's going on as on the page it did feel rather flat.

However, as with most of the previous Charmed novels, this is an enjoyable, if predictably lightweight read.  It's just a shame that Pocket Books aren't giving us longer and more involving novels rather than simple runarounds aimed at early (and even pre-) teens. back to the top

THE GYPSY ENCHANTMENT

Written by CARLA JABLONSKI

POCKET BOOKS

£3.99


RATING: 6/10


NEXT RELEASE:
THE LEGACY OF MERLIN

PREVIOUS RELEASE:
HAUNTED BY DESIRE