Adventures in Babysitting meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this funny, action-packed novel about a coven of witchy babysitters who realize their calling to protect the innocent and save the world from an onslaught of evil.
Seventeen-year-old Esme Pearl has a babysitters club. She knows it’s kinda lame, but what else is she supposed to do? Get a job? Gross. Besides, Esme likes babysitting, and she’s good at it.
And lately Esme needs all the cash she can get, because it seems like destruction follows her wherever she goes. Let’s just say she owes some people a new tree.
Enter Cassandra Heaven. She’s Instagram-model hot, dresses like she found her clothes in a dumpster, and has a rebellious streak as gnarly as the cafeteria cooking. So why is Cassandra willing to do anything, even take on a potty-training two-year-old, to join Esme’s babysitters club?
The answer lies in a mysterious note Cassandra’s mother left her: “Find the babysitters. Love, Mom.”
Turns out, Esme and Cassandra have more in common than they think, and they’re about to discover what being a babysitter really means: a heroic lineage of superpowers, magic rituals, and saving the innocent from seriously terrifying evil. And all before the parents get home.
Amazon Link: The Babysitters Coven (The Babysitters Coven #1)
Author: Kate M. Williams
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Rating: 5/5 stars
When I was growing up, I read over a hundred books in The Babysitters Club series (and I wanted to be Kristy because she was the leader, and her name was really close to mine) and the spin-offs like the mysteries and the Little Sister series. So the moment I saw this book, I was instantly drawn to it. And it did not disappoint!
Like the Babysitters Club, these girls have to deal with the hijinks of little kids, which made me chuckle. (As a mom and a retired preschool teacher, I’m very familiar with these types of hijinks!) But they also find out they have a calling to use their magic to protect their charges, and they even have a guardian to train them along the way. Like true Buffy fans, they can’t resist calling him Giles. But there are many other references in this book to things like horror movies and I don’t want to spoil them all.
I would love to be friends with Esme and Cassandra. They are two kickass girls and their nonmagical friend is a treat as well. In fact, I loved pretty much all the characters in this book. (Some of them were love to hate, like seeing the snobby cheerleaders get what was coming to them!)
The story got a little darker than I expected later on when dealing with the demons and the mysteries of their parents’ past. But it never lost that fun campy voice and I enjoyed every page. I’m looking forward to the next book!
TW: possession, bullying, mental illness
