DAY 6: The Book You’ve Read the Most Number of Times.

Greetings fellow book nerds! Right now I am hyped up on lack of sleep, (I’ve noticed this usually tends to be my final wave before I conk out completely) so lets hope I complete this without my head bashing the keyboard. 😀

The first book series that enters my mind – and probably a thousand other bookworms heads around the globe is the Harry Potter series. I’ve read it at least six times and went through a stage where I reread them every summer. Originally the books always came out at this time and I would sit reading them in the garden. Once the series was finished I continued the tradition, and even now whenever I see the first rays of sun in grey old England I feel the irresistible urge to dig out the first book and start Harry’s adventure all over again. However, to me Harry Potter seems too much of an obvious choice and as much as we all love it, it is hard to say anything ground breaking or new on the subject of interest! Besides, I already rambled about Luna on day 2. 🙂
So instead I choose to give the spotlight to a less well known and under appreciated set of books that I have reread multiple times and love just as much – Cate Tiernan’s Wicca series, or the Sweep series as it is know in some other countries.

Ohhh how can I sum up this series epic nature and without spoilers as well?! This blog post is going to be a challenge.

As I mentioned when I reviewed the first novel Book of Shadows on this blog last year, I feel like this book series found me; I began reading them when I was at the perfect age and in a time of transition in my life. I had finally broken away from a somewhat toxic friendship I had been in since primary school and was starting to explore more of the world as an individual, trying to figure out who I wanted to be. The books also helped cement a new friendship when I found a girl in the library who was just as passionate about the series as I was. To say they have sentimental value would be an understatement.

The series follows sixteen year old Morgan Rowlands your average shy, slightly awkward sixteen year old. But when a guy named Cal Blaire moves to town everything begins to change. He introduces Morgan, her best friends Robbie and Bree, along with several other students to the religion Wicca. Hesitant at first Morgan soon finds she has a talent for it that the others do not possess, it makes her feel whole in a way she has never felt before.
This along with gorgeous Cal’s interest in her makes Bree envious, and Morgan soon finds herself minus one best friend. As the series continues readers follow Morgan learning more about Wicca, her continuing relationships with her friends, family and romantic others, as she continues to grow as a person.

That’s all I can really say without spoilers because there are so many plot twists and surprising revelations in the story that would spoil it if I told you! 😛 There are 15 books in total but each is small and they often seem to be sold in volumes now that contain three stories each. No matter which edition these books seem to suffer from such terrible cover art, that I often think it is a miracle that I picked them up at all!

These books have everything you could want from a YA series, massive conflicts, first love, loss, magic, danger, betrayal, suspense and elements mystery that I always wonder why they aren’t more popular. Cate Tiernan’s writing isn’t the best you will ever come across but she has such a knack for creating a lovable and vast cast of characters. The Wiccan circles bring together a wide mix of people, popular, nerdy, rebels, goody goodies, the shy and the confident that you will find it hard not to relate to at least a few of them. The contrast between the various cliques and social groups who come together to celebrate Wicca is huge, so the way their relationships develop with each other is fascinating to read about. The lead protagonist Morgan grows and changes so much as a character from book 1-15 which was wonderful to read about, you go through all the growing pains with her one step at a time and before you know it, she’ll be embedded in your heart as a favourite character forever. 🙂 The novels are action packed too and Tiernan never wastes a page or a chapter on irrelevant boring details.

Even with all of the above, my favourite aspect of the series has to be the focus on Wicca, it goes into so much detail about the practices, the symbolism and the rules of the religion which makes the series more fascinating than your average books. It inspired me to do a lot of research on the topic and it became a new obsession of mine for a while. The beliefs and the misconceptions about those that practice it are so interesting. So not only will you be entertained by this series, you’ll learn a lot too!

I honestly can’t recommend this series enough and I will continue to reread them again and again! I don’t think I will ever get bored of them.

Which book or book series have you read the most number of times? I would love to get some great recommendations! 🙂

What’s the 30 Day Book Challenge you ask? Click here and find out.

Image Sources:
My own, please do not reuse.