Review: Good Continuation, but not as good as first book.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 20, 2012
PDF version free from the author for honest reviewThis book picks up where the first Gabby Girls Adventure ends...the four friends (Gabrielle, Jessica, Zora, and Rosalinda) have found out that they are part of a magical group.  They now are to move to a different "school" and learn how to use their gifts and powers as Circles (magical/powerful women).  Before they can make the trip to their new school the school they are at now is attacked and nearly everyone there is killed.  The four girls are taken to safety and do get to their new school for training, but now their training must happen much faster to prepare them to fight in the war that is coming.  Gabrielle is found to be the Akasha reincarnate and is seen to be the answer to the war problem, but how can a sixteen year old girl solve a problem like that?  When the girls get to the new school Rosalinda seems to be distancing herself from the other three girls.  She is acting weird and seems distracted a lot.  She says it's her Dad's latest conversation, but is it really that?  As training gets underway the girls form new friendships and gain new enemies too.  It's not easy trying to focus on studies with a whole mess of major hot male classmates running around.  Gabrielle soon discovers that not is all how it seems.  Her Grandmother is on the Counsel at the school and is suddenly ill, but not because she is naturally sick...someone has put a black spell on her and she will be lost forever if Gabrielle can't find and "borrow" the special book of spells that is hidden and well guarded at the school.  She enlists the help of her Gabby Girls again along with a new Gabby Girl, Brooklyn and a major cutie warrior, Justice (because he knows how to get to it).  The plan starts to fall apart when Gabi and Zora finally find the book, but set off an alarm when they take it off the pedestal it was sitting on.  Gabi and Justice stay behind to go up against the warriors coming, while the rest of the Gabby Girls are to take the book and run out and hide the book until Gabi gets back.  Sounded like a good enough plan.  So where's the catch?  Not all the Gabby Girls should be trusted and Gabi makes a huge mistake handing the book off to the one Gabby Girl traitor of the bunch.  She later finds (while she is in the dungeon for stealing the book along with Justice) that the book has been stolen by none other than a trusted Gabby Girl and she or the book are nowhere to be found.  How can Gabi even try to fix things when she is locked away as punishment?  Can she trust Justice to help her escape somehow?  Can she find the Gabby Girl and the book in time to save her Grandmother's life...and prevent a war?All-in-all I would say this was a good young adult read.  It had action, adventure, humor, teen problems, friendships, and magic.  It kept a good pace of what was going on, but I didn't find myself as sucked into this book as I did the first one.  The action wasn't as Gabby Girl centered or quite as intense as in the first book.  There was more center on who Gabrielle really is and on relationships she tries to form.  I came to like the characters more in this book though because they became more in depth.  I saw more of who they were as people and what they were as Circles and what they could do.  It was interesting to see how they all stepped outside their comfort zones in the new school and with how they began to take an interest in the new boys that are at the new school too.  I was a bit blown away by the twists in this book.  Some of them flowed very well and I found myself thinking, oh man should have seen that coming.  Others left me thinking, what that heck is with this.  My favorite character is by far Gabrielle aka Gabi.  She is strong willed, not afraid to do what she has to, and is at the same time delicate and fragile.  I very much enjoyed this book and would recommend it.  I didn't enjoy it as much as the first book, but I will also say that I am looking forward to the third book very much.4/5 Stars!