Spy Glass

Fantasy and romance jostle uneasily in Snyder's third Glass Magic adventure. Sassy adolescent heroine Opal Cowen sacrificed her magical powers by draining off some of her blood in Sea Glass. Now she hopes to reverse the process, but someone has stolen her blood. While navigating the inevitable love triangle, Opal launches herself into a dicey spy-training program, equipped with a future-telling spy glass and her faithful steed, Quartz. Opal's sacrifice is also Snyder's, and the loss of power is paralleled: without the appealing glassblowing lore of earlier books, Opal's frenetic dual quests to recapture her magic and decide between two hunky lovers loses much of its originality, reducing this limited-vocabulary novel to a superficial and conventional young adult thriller. (Sept.)