Regarding the book, it IS called The Bloodline and I read it in the logbook. Regarding the spell, I figured it out. When I said I had an enemy “targeted”, I meant highlighted in red. I didn't mean locked-on. If I lock-on it works fine. Also, locking-on, using battle charge, and then unlocking is pretty easy. I have them assigned to keys I can get to quickly. Sometimes it still works without locking-on, and sometimes I forget to lock-on and run into a tree or stone wall.

It shouldn't be necessary to lock-on since you don't have to with other spells so there's definitely a bug or a conflict somewhere. I also tried different video drivers: the newest available as well as some older ones. It made no difference so I'll just use it with locking-on.
Were there no patches released? The release of most games is followed by a patch or 2.