DATE
WITH DEATH
HOLLYWOOD
REPORTER 100TH EPISODE SPECIAL
GARDEN
OF EVIL
CHARMED
AGAIN
SPIRIT
OF THE WOLF
Not for the first time, Pocket Books have taken advantage of the lack of budgetary constraints to send the Halliwells on holiday (although Prue is, nominally, working) as the girls show up on the English-Welsh border for an adventure set in the unlikely setting of Hay-on-Wye.
Unfortunately, and not for the first time, it's a shame that they felt the change of setting didn't really require much of a story as that old chestnut of one of the sisters falling for a hunky new guy looms large in the plot of The Legacy of Merlin.
Prue is allegedly in the UK as a private antiques buyer, and naturally her two sisters tag along for the ride. Quite how they can afford to do so with Piper the owner of a newly opened club, Phoebe a student and constant repairs to the Manor having to be paid for is a bit of a mystery, but there you go.
Pretty soon, Phoebe bumps into this week's new guy in a bookshop and has a vision of him holding a baby - but just whose? Meanwhile, Prue gets to meet an old biddy selling fruit and Piper stupidly casts a love spell, which backfires with rather predictable results.
Throw in some druids, a bit of time travelling and the end is the usual Charmed runaround - relatively fun, but far too lightweight to be particularly memorable.
The series - both on TV and in print - has occasionally tapped into potentially interesting subjects (Egyptology in Feats of Clay and Arthurian legends here), but failed to take advantage of them. There's a couple of neat touches here involving language and the usual problem of time-travelling, but that's about it.
The novels' constant use of having one of the girls fall for the first guy who shows up is becoming increasingly repetitive, while there's no real sense of when the story takes place within the series' overall continuity.
Shannen Doherty has criticised Charmed as being a series for 12-year-olds; if only Pocket Books' novels were aimed that high. BACK TO THE TOP
THE LEGACY
OF MERLIN
Written by ELOISE FLOOD
POCKET BOOKS
£4.99
RATING: 5/10