Charmed: Changeling Places by Micol Ostow

[katekintailbc]

Charmed: Changeling Places
by Micol Ostow

The idea fit all right into the Charmed universe. Piper wants to be a normal working mother. So she sends Wyatt to the day care where Paige is working (one of her many mysteriously magical temp jobs). But elves are switching their babies with ones at the day care, so that the demon will take the human children instead of the elven ones.

I had trouble buying into the concept. When confronted, the elves confessed that they had invaded the day care and switched, the elves said they hadn't hurt the babies. But they were still going to offer them up to a demon... which, I suspect, would have hurt. Moreover, how were they going to get their babies back, now that the parents had pulled them out of the day care? Then the charmed ones are angry and don't help the elves. They leave and then decide they will help. Then they end up binding the powers of an entire village of magical creatures? Whoa. That seemed a little extreme. Way to punish innocents!

This story took some time to get going. Once it did, the solution and resolution was pretty quick. Even with padding like a little girl at the day care who saw the elves for what they were and like Ask Phoebe's latest column, the book could easily have been trimmed down and been a decent size fanfic. It's a really short book and quick read, but I found a lot of it restating itself.

I enjoyed it (especially when Wyatt got to use his powers), but it's not my favorite Charmed tie-in novel.