Spellbinder is on par with book #1 and perhaps even better because Thea is a better heroine and the story tried to be more complex, but ultimately it suffers from underdevelopment of most of its plot lines.

Instead of vampires, this focuses on witches who, oddly, have a bizarre human hatred thing going on despite basically being humans with powers. I don't know. It was executed weirdly because the hatred seemed to be displayed too similar to how vampires think humans are inferior. The hatred is less "they are the enemy who has betrayed us and burned us and oppressed us" and more "they're a different species like worthless ants" like how vampires in this universe view humans as weak prey, so it felt weird. This was one major mark against the book because Thea's prejudice just kind of... goes away. Like Eric is nice and she's like "welp, now I don't hate humans even though it'd be easier for me to do so." Everything is introduced, a minor issue, and then easily solved in the most direct, bland way possible.

Blaise was... evil... but then... not? Like I don't really get it because Blaise definitely did some fucked up things to a lot of boys but because Thea stands up for 1 of them Blaise is like "Okay I'll stop" and like all is forgiven. Sis straight ruined a boy's life for GOOD and she just is still likeable and redeemed and her punishment is going to stay with a watchful aunt to curb her ways? I don't feel like there was any real conflict between the cousins, so I don't know why the blurb wanted to really build that up. Basically Blaise and Thea have a few little skirmishes with magic and then Blaise is like "Okay whatever" and I'm like.... why do all these story threads happen and then just taper off like nothing?

The soulmate thing wasn't as harsh in this book, but it still basically made everything boil down into instalove. The read went by fast and I appreciate that this story is trying to step things up from the last two, but it ultimately is disappointing :/