Wooded Discovery: A Coming of Age Urban Fantasy

by B.B. Swann

Previously published as Out of the Woods by B.B. Swann.

His senior year just turned magical. Now if only he can win his crush’s affections without getting killed.

Seventeen-year-old Zaidyn Mitchell would rather not be weird. But nothing can be stranger than when the self-proclaimed bookworm wakes up one night, floating several feet above his bed. Still desperate to fit in after his parents unceremoniously unlocked his abilities, all Zaidyn wants is to date the girl of his dreams.

With his magic a little uncontrolled, the budding wizard finally makes a move and promises his beautiful classmate to help stop a construction project from destroying the nearby woods. But when an unknown force attacks and tries to separate them, Zaidyn fears this supernatural world is about to send them to their doom.

Can the teen would-be hero find a way to save them both?

Wooded Discovery is the delightful first book in the Spellbound Chronicles YA urban fantasy series. If you like humor and drama, fun twists and turns, and a dash of danger and romance, then you’ll love B.B. Swann’s coming-of-age adventure.

Buy Wooded Discovery to awaken hidden enchantment today!

260 pages, Paperback

First published August 20, 2020

About the author

As a chronically ill, disabled author, BB Swann is a huge supporter of mental health awareness and encourages everyone to take the time to be understanding of others. You never know what someone is going through because not all disabilities can be seen on the outside.

She is a mother of three young adults, a wife, and a 30-year retired elementary teacher. She has all the age groups covered and draws on their influence when writing her books. Picture book, young adult, new adult, and beyond, they all have one thing in common—life experiences, both the good and the challenging.

While she celebrates her first year being called “Grandma,” she is owned by three cats, one bouncy granddog, and two sweet grandkitties.

She graduated from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL with her Bachelors of Ed. in Early Childhood Education, then left the corn capital to receive her Masters of Ed. in Language and Literacy from National Louis University, in Chicago.

In 2020—because why not start something new during a global pandemic—she became a literary agent and works with the fabulous group at FinePrint Literary Management in Manhattan, NY. She represents incredible authors, many of whom also have numerous furry overlords and small two-legged dictators commanding their households.

Most nights you can find her reading or writing into the wee hours. She believes in the almighty power of caffeine and battling old age with purple hair and plenty of sarcasm.

Reviews

[TheBookandBubble]

Wooded Discovery by B.B. Swann

This is book one in The Spellbound Chronicles. It’s a fun mix of magic, teen drama, and mystery.

We follow Zaidyn Mitchell, a total bookworm whose wizard powers suddenly unlock right before senior year. One minute he’s returning library books, the next he’s realizing he can levitate and read minds (he’s not your average late blooming teen).

With his best friend Iggy (who brings plenty of laughs and mischief), Zaidyn meets several new friends who possess magic. He learns that controlling magic while dealing with high school crushes can be difficult. His crush, Piper, is passionate about saving the local woods. A secret benefactor is trying to build a new library out of local woods. There is a secret presence that tries to keep them apart and this is when things get exciting.

There’s romance, magical secrets, and mysterious attacks. The story has plenty twists and is a fun coming-of-age fantasy.

This YA fantasy will appeal to 16-20 year olds.

[Cath]

This is book one of The Spellbound Chronicles series and the main character is bookworm Zaidyn Mitchell (17), whose wizard powers are suddenly unlocked by his parents. It’s the last day of the summer holidays, before he and his friends return for their final year of high school, and so nerdy Zaidyn is returning a pile of books he only borrowed a couple of days before. Just as something weird happens as he re-shelves the books, his best friend Iggy surprises him and he knocks loads of books to the floor. Iggy helps him and somehow gets all of the books in the correct numerical order, with no effort at all somehow. Iggy drags him out of the ice cream shop, where other high school kids hang out, in yet another effort to set him up with a girl, to have sex and not be a virgin for his senior year! Zaidyn has shot up loads this summer, changing from an average height, weedy looking geek, to one of the tallest in his class and now a solid build as well. Who knew what a summer could bring! He is a really late bloomer in the wizarding department and his parents had been getting pretty worried about whether he would transmogrify into a wizard, which normally happens at puberty.

His mother is a mind reader and his father can levitate, while it seems he can do both, which is very unusual! They need to create a family bond, to help make his magic more powerful and to also help him to control it. He can’t show anyone else magic, so has to be careful. He now needs to get ready to go to his last, first day of school, and go see Ms. Aeschliman immediately, as she works with the other kids like him. Running late, he decides to see her after lunch, but ends up having a bit of magical moment in the middle of gym class, flying up the rope instead of climbing it! Luckily his best mate Iggy s also magical, but not in the same way as Zaidyn, and when he takes him to see Mrs A., he soon learns about a few more magical kids like him, in his year. Iggy makes fun of Zaidyn for not breaking his v-card with any girl yet and keeps trying to set him up, but Zaidyn has his own crush Piper, who he thinks doesn’t like or even really know him. She is the daughter of his favourite teacher, Mr Duke, his English teacher. She is part of the student council and is trying to get a paper recycling programme started in the school and she succeeds somewhat. Mr Duke wants Zaidyn to get student support for a new library, which the city have a benefactor lined up for, who want it build in a local wood. Piper is totally against that plan and it causes a few bad vibes between the two of them, just as they are trying to get together romantically.

Zaidyn is just getting used to having magic and isn’t great at controlling it, especially with his higher emotions every time he is around Piper. He wants to help her keep the forest safe and not have all the trees cut down, when there are better places it could be built, but doesn’t tell her father, as he appears at the local town meeting and puts across a different suggestion. He gets the girl soon after and couldn’t be happier, but one of Iggy’s friends tries to tell him that Piper is bad for him and is somehow stealing his magic aura! All the magical group have had a Mr Blackwood, the lead unicorn and rule maker in their area, force the rule about them not dating with others not of the same magical type as them! To the teenagers, this is unreal at their age, especially since Iggy and Gabby, and Ky and Melody, are together and complete opposites of each other. Mrs A. hadn’t laid down the law with them, knowing none of them were hugely serious at this age, only difference is that Zaidyn and Piper are actually mates! She has been brought up with a human father and a mother who disappeared when she was young, not knowing she was magical. It is Zaidyn who figured that out!

There is a secret presence in the woods and when he is attacked trying to get some answers, the truth finally starts to come out, even if his parents were unable to tell him. Someone is trying to destroy the woods and Piper has Zaidyn on her side, as well as others in town now, wanting to stop that from happening. Zaidyn has found clues to one identity of someone connected to the ownership of the woods, but that brings more questions and even danger for the teens. It seems that the powers to be want him and Piper to keep apart and are willing to separate them by any means open to them. He places himself in danger by going back to the woods and finds one presence that is out to get him for some reason, while another tries to help him. There is something hokey going on with the supposed benefactor wanting to build the new library only out by the lake, in the woods. It looks like it will be up to the teenagers to figure out what is going on and how to stop it, as they wade into a long held secret and blow everything into chaos. Lots of surprise and twist sin this story, as well as a coming of age in the magical world added to teen romance against adversity. A very unusual mix of paranormals in this magical world and secrets causing issues they needn’t have. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.

[Ryan]

This book is very reminiscent of the movie sky high. Where a kid comes from a family of superheroes, but doesn’t get their power and all the sudden they have it but troubles about. In the case of this book, however it’s not superheroes but magical entities, such as unicorns, wizards, demons, angels, etc.

Overall, this book was a fun read. Depending on where you look both, including the back of this version as well as certain areas of good read, it says this is a series. However, having finished this book, there’s no place to go. In fact, this book spent so much time on the buildup that it rushes through the end and the explanation of all the magical folks and what’s going on. That is a drawback. It also at times feels like twilight fanfiction where you have faded mates, chosen ones my power gives you power, etc.. The first half of the book would be considered clean but there is a sex scene at about the 70% mark. It does play into the story but it also gives that faded mates Trope that is very heavily handed in this book.

Now on to small things, first off a unicorn, and a Pegasus are not the same thing. Ggas are never mentioned in this book but the unicorns have wings. That annoys me plus there are times where the references seem odd. There are multiple Harry Potter references throughout the book which makes sense. However, differences, for example, like Fabio and romance, novel covers seem out of place. I know our main character is a book, loving nerd, and does read romance, but it’s still out of place. You can tell the age of the author in the story. Because even if you had a modern 17-year-old reading romance novels, they wouldn’t be reading 40-year-old romance novels most likely. and someone could say that that’s in the library that is an integral part of the story that needs to be replaced but most of the Fabio romance novel don’t exist in public libraries anymore. It dates the book and takes the reader out of the experience, there are other small things like this throughout the book that are a tad bit annoying. They’re not bad they just scream older adult writting for YA.

Overall, I like this book but I didn’t love it. It took way too long to finish because there was so much buildup for not much to happen. I also think things that hinder it is it’s got the wrong title and the wrong cover. The current cover on my version is like looking through a hole in the tree to wood with leaves falling and the book is titled with discovery. According to Goodreads, the original title was Out of the Woods. That title is better, and does come to play at the very very end of the book but I don’t think either fit the book well. The cover is atrocious and seems like a indie published romance for middle-aged women to be more appealing to their demographic may be a more cartoon cover or a cover that has people on it. And maybe some of the animals maybe some as humans some as they are Characters. I could see something like the title with Iggy and I think it’s Gabby the demon in the angel sitting up and looking over Piper and Z. It needs to appeal more to why because this is very solidly. Why. It could be acceptable to young, but there is Sex scene that not specifically graphic does exist and is appropriate for the age and what’s happening in the book. So once again overall, I’d like this book but I didn’t love it.

[Abbie Riddle]

A fun quick read that will be a weekend favourite for readers. I think this fully falls under YA and is not a crossover, in fact I would say that it is specifically targeted for high school age students.

The author weaves an interesting story about trying to save a forest, friendships and the things that drive us to be better than we are.

This was an enjoyable read all in all.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Red Book Review]

Thank You to Pump Up Your Book Tours and the author for this free read in exchange for my honest review of Wooded Discovery by B.B. Swann.
Wooded Discovery is the first book in the Spellbound Chronicles series and is a YA fantasy series where a seventeen year old ends up finding out he can do magic. This was written good and every character in this one was interesting. It was a fun and page turning read. I did enjoy this one and would recommend it to any young adult readers.

[Lisa]

enjoyable read

All my favorites, mythical creatures, magic and coming of age, a bit of love, friendship and over coming evil .