Customer Reviews

Witchlight

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

THIS WAS AN OK READ, LITTLE WEIRD AND WITCHY, WOULDN'T TELL MY FRIENDS ITS A MUST READ BOOK

I read Witchlight over a weekend as a fill in and relaxation. The plot focuses on a woman "Winter" who lost her memory due to some psychological trauma, and is struggling to regain her memory before the evil demon becomes too strong. For me, that kind of plot is questionable at best and this one tries our imagination way beyond credibility. While I sympathize with authors who use common nouns for names, "Winter" was a name that was often confusing in context. In the plot, Winter and some college students began dabbling in dark magick some years ago and formed a magical group where they conjured an artificial elemental, but were too inexperienced to clean up after themselves. Winter gets pregnant, leaves her ne'er do well boyfriend and goes home to her abusive though rich parents. She forgets all about college (including the abortion and the magic) and becomes a successful Wall Street broker. Some years later her ex-boyfriend is almost killed in a motorcycle crash and is in a coma for years. Lost in limbo land between life and death he tries to make contact by summoning the artificial elemental which is still wandering aimlessly around the nether reaches of darkness. It begins to haunt the former members of the college circle, and Winter's torment begins. The book deals with how she tries to remember all that she's forgotten. Most of the other characters are cardboard, including the two professors at the psychic Institute where she turns for help, but rejects most of the help. Action is stilted and unnatural. Memory loss is treated in unrealistic ways. The artificial elemental is either very, very powerful or weak depending on plot at the time. Winter turns out to have psychokinetic power to destroy electric devices and other things. And after the long build up the ending is trivial. It just stops, the elemental goes away, and they live happily ever after. I was disappointed.

I've never been more tempted to put a book down after the first fifty pages as I was when I began reading this book. Bradley is one of my favorite authors and the biggest draw about her novels is their remarkable ability to keep you engrossed in the text. The beginning of this book, however is a completely different story. You go through the motions along with the main character, winding your way through the broken and patchy memories of an inconsistant past. Who wants to go through that? Even though you might be tempted to give up and move on to something else, stick with it. The end result will please you. As the memories slowly begin their emergence, the novel becomes more and more inticing, with the whispers of forgotten friends calling through the haze to reach you. Anyone who is a fan of Bradley's gothic storytelling will not be sorry that they read this. I know your not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but don't judge this one by the first fifty pages or so.

...but not her worst, either. I haven't read any of the other titles in this series, so I didn't know what to expect. MZB's output has varied wildly in quality from brilliant to disastrous, and I was ready for this to go either way. For me, this sat smack in the middle.

I wasn't overwhelmed by the characters. Perhaps it is that our main character, Winter Musgrave, is part-amnesiac and terrified through the first third of the book, but it was very difficult to get comfortable with her. Once we have some idea what is happening to her it is easier to dig in. I think that MZB has an interesting premise with this one, and I think the "why" of the mystery is well thought out. However, (note: I am trying to avoid any spoilers, otherwise this might be more coherent) I think Winter's eventual visit to her family serves only to introduce characters for another novel and doesn't seem structurally significant, and the ending did not satisfy.

I really liked this book. I got hooked on Bradley/books after reading Mists of Avalon, which in my opinion is the best book by Bradley. I really enjoyed this new series of books about magic and everyday life so to say. Enjoy!

This book was actually co-written by a favorite author of mine so I was surprised by how uneven the story was. While the premise was interesting, I found Winter to be very off-putting.

If you are narrowminded enough to believe that witches worship the devil, and that they are bad terrible cult people whom everyone needs rescuing, and if you believe that the Salem Witch trials killed evil people, then read on. Otherwise, this book is insulting to real wiccans and otherwise intelligent people who know that real witches would never take part in something this hideous.
This book is witch hunting at it's best. I hope children don't take this book to heart and believe that other religions are bad just because their parents don't understand them.

Winter Musgrave loves her work as a high-powered trader on Wall Street. The only problem is, she can't seem to remember her life before her job. And then, when animals drained of their blood start showing up in her path, she believes that she is losing her mind.
After a psychiatric clinic fails to help her, she turns to the Bidney Institute, a resource center for parapsychology. Despite her disbelief, she begins to trust in the researchers. They find that Winter's problems are stemming from what they call a "magickal child," and believe that she must recreate a Blackburn circle that she was a part of in college in order to rid herself of the unwanted occurrences.
I found the plot of this book to be intruiging and fast-moving - probably the best in Bradley's *Light series. At points my lack of knowledge of occult or parapsychological phenomena hindered my understanding, however that is not a fault of the author but of my limited knowledge. I'd recommend this book to anyone with an interest in parapsychological phenomena.

I thought it was an amazing book, to which I could hardly put down for a second. It has opened up new doors for me and I would now like to look into reasurching goasts and psychic investigations as a field of work. Overall it was wonderful and I plan to reread it as well as her other books in the near future.

THis novel continues the **Light series. As with Ghostlight, the fictional magickal system is quite realistice, though with certain leaps of imagination that might be occultically impossible. I say "might" because that phrase is itself a troubling one. Can we really say that a magickal childe cannot form its own consciousness and go beyond it's creator's intnet intent? In any case, the diversions from acccepted theory help keep the general reader from getting bogged down in explinations of magick that can't possibly be all that intersting to those interested in the mystery of an occult novel, not its minute acuracies or innacuracies. The storyline is more intimate than Ghostlight. We learn more about Winter's family, and more about Truth Jourdemain, than the above novel allowed for. Those concerned about occult accuracy, which overall is quite present in this novel, should pardon leaps of imagination. It is, when all is said and done, a FANTASY. Don't take it so bloody seriously.

Recommended.