Roseanne A. Brown’s dynamic and devastating vampire slayer Serwa Boateng returns in Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Witchcraft and Mayhem. This is the second book in the series from the Rick Riordan Present imprint and Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Witchcraft and Mayhem is a nuanced look at the parental role, how children interpret their parents, and the value of loyalty and love.
In the first book of the series Serwa learned that she has both good and dark magic in her and when she broke the magical seal suppressing her dark magic, her vampire side came out. Running away with her aunt, who was their family’s enemy, Serwa learns that her family history may not have been as accurate as she once thought.
Now hiding in her aunt’s refuge hotel in Washington DC, learning the other half of family history from her kind and considerate, but very powerful vampire aunt, Serwa is conflicted in what to do. All her life, she has been trained to hunt vampires, but what she learns from her aunt has her question if the life she has been living was correct. How can Serwa hunt a vampire when she is one?
The longer she stays with her aunt the more conflicted Serwa becomes, but vampires can’t hide from slayers, and Serwa cannot hide from her parents forever.
Roseanne A. Brown has taken a different approach with her second novel. Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Witchcraft and Mayhem allows the readers to get to know more about our characters and not plan a hunt for vampires. This is a book that allows us to dive deep into the psychology of our characters, while questioning the actions of the characters. What we learn as readers forces us to stay on our toes, wondering what will happen next.
Brown has created a chance for the audience to take a breath. In her first book, readers were sitting on the edge of their seat as we battled vampires and were confronted with a tidal wave of family secrets that was a shocking and unique ending to the first book.
The continued theme of family secrets is given more clarity in this book, but what I particularly enjoyed was how Serwa watched her aunt as she pursued the quest to free the grandmother from the Midnight Drum and was almost duplicating Serwa’s journey. What Serwa’s aunt believes to be truth about her mother, may not be the whole truth.
Roseanne A. Brown has continued to highlight how family secrets are not just kept hidden from young kids. Much older children can still believe the wrong history as much as a twelve-year-old can. Family power is a central focus of the story, but one of the most important elements, and one of the key moments of Serwa’s development is how she learns from the mistakes of her family in order to correct her own missteps with her friends.
Poor Serwa may be isolated from her parents, but she is not her aunt’s prisoner. We see Serwa meet up with Declan who is a fellow slayer that Serwa doesn’t like. Her initial dislike for Declan is based on misconstrued social moments that were heightened by her own insecurities.
If Serwa was wrong about her history with Declan, then perhaps she is wrong about her parents and how she interprets the magical seal they put on her to keep her dark magic in check? It wouldn’t be the first time that a teen hero has misjudged their parents in literature.
Why this connects with the reader of any age is that even though the novel is set in a mythology that brings vampires to the modern world, we see the family connections and parental and child issues that anyone can relate to. Everyone has had a moment when you question your parents’ actions. For parents, we have all made decisions that we thought were in the best interest of our child, even though we should have talked to them about it first.
Time and time again the authors at Rick Riordan Presents unleash stories laced with the supernatural or mythological sides of cultures from around the world. Once again, I am indebted to talented writers like Roseanne A. Brown who make literary works of these unique aspects of the world and allow me to have a moment to partake in these adventures.
Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Witchcraft and Mayhem is a joyful read. Being the second book in the series is a difficult spot to fill but it successfully sets up to the sure to be action packed third novel in the series. I was never a fan of vampire tales, (including Dracula), but Brown has made me interested and kept me on the edge of my seat with her loveable Serwa Boateng.