Finishing the Spellman Series: Books 3-5

Ok, I’m taking a short cut here to review the last 3 books of the Spellman series because they’ve honestly all blurred together in my mind at this point and I read them so fast that I didn’t even slow down to write reviews when the books were fresh in my mind.  Oops.

Izzy Spellman, private investigator, is back solving mysteries for clients and herself.  Her family is as quirky as ever, but it seems as though the Spellmans are finally growing up.

• Revenge of the Spellmans involves Izzy’s court-ordered therapy, which turned out to be a lot less hilarious and insightful as I had hoped.  She is also pretty miserable, finding herself homeless and between jobs.  I can’t remember much more specific to the book, but it was fun enough that I moved straight into the next two installments in the series.
• The Spellmans Strike Again gives us our first evidence that Izzy is growing up.  She is back with Spellman Investigations and is taking on more responsibility.  There was some major sad stuff that happened in this one that had me crying my eyes out at the end.  But Henry and Izzy finally get their moment which made me happy.  Rae starts getting involved with freeing wrongfully convicted felons and gets as obsessive about it as she does anything else.  Izzy, too, becomes obsessed with a wrongful conviction case.  It is kinda fun to see them solving more serious cases than before, but there is still plenty of silliness and family drama going on.
• Trail of the Spellmans felt much more serious than the rest of the series, but I think that is just because the Spellman kids have finally grown up.  Izzy is living with Henry, though things are tense between the two.  Rae is off to college and has only a passing interest in investigations any more.  David, while always pretty serious, has mellowed out some after becoming a parent.  The introduction of Demetrius and Grandma Spellman was fun, but I really missed the Rae character.  Honestly, Rae’s antics are some of my favorite parts of the series and she sort of fades out of the story as she is off at college.  I look forward to seeing where the series goes next, but I am hoping that the author introduces more quirky characters to offset the loss of some to various causes.

Overall, I highly recommend this series.  It is a lot of fun and I think will appeal to those who enjoy quirky family drama!

I read/reviewed this book in conjunction with the Series Catch-Up 2012.