An Educated Novel About Witchcraft
938548
This is not a fantasy novel or a Barbara Walker-esque screed on the "Burning Times". The Southerns family were real people in 16th and early 17th century Lancashire, England. The matriarch of this impoverished little clan was Elizabeth, aka Mother Demdike, a woman with a gift as a "blesser". Mother Demdike was a practitioner of the Old Religion you see, namely Catholicism.

Mary Sharratt lives in the Pendle area of Lancashire and the novel is based on 1612 witch trials. The charms Mother Demdike knows and teaches to her daughter and granddaughter are out of folk Catholicism. The novel is earthy and full of a sense of place.

There is a fair amount of exposition because the novel covers over eight decades. Despite this, it never feels rushed and it slows even more at the most important things, namely, Mother Demdike's joy and love in her grandchildren as well as her heartbreak when her best friend turns to black magic and her disappointment when her daughter and granddaughters fail to pick up the mantle of local cunning woman.

Unfortunately, they learn just too much to get them into trouble....

Mary Sharratt did her research painstakingly and her connection to the locality comes through on every page. I wish I hadn't waited so long to read this, and I'll be passing my copy along so others read it as well.
1086355
This book is not for the casual reader, or one wanting a dramatic narrative of the Salem witch trials.  Author Mary Beth Norton has almost no interest in whether the accusers or alleged witches were real, hysterical, sick, or faking.  She focuses on the tangled relationships among the participants, reaching decades before and hundreds of miles away from Salem.

Norton finds the seeds of the witchcraft trials in frontier wars among English settlers, French, and Native Americans during the 1670s-80s in what is now Maine.  A number of the afflicted girls were refugees from Maine and lost family there.  Some of the accused witches had been their neighbors in Maine or fought there.  Some were rumored to have aided the settlers enemies.  Their religion led people to see the judgment of God, the hand of Satan, or both, at work in the conflict.  The author describes the witchcraft trials in Salem in the context of the fear and distrust engendered by these wars.

Given the tangle of relationships, the book itself sometimes gets tangled.  Accused become accusers, and evidence changes between accusation, grand jury, and trial.  She cant help the large cast and confusingly similar names, and she has included useful appendices.  Nonetheless, it makes for slow going.  The book is thoroughly researched and footnoted.

Definitely read this if you are interested in the historical period, but not if you're looking for a good read.

(I bought this at a used book sale)
4191565
A compelling historic drama about one of the darkest chapter's in America's history-the Salem witch trials.
Told through the eyes of Sarah Cartier, who as an intelligent and curious child finds her life turned into a nightmare when her mother Martha, a herbalist and healer is accused of of witchcraft. Her entire family is hounded, humiliated and and starved before being sent to a hellish prison.
A richly atmospheric novel of insane and cruel hysteria driven by cruel and malevolent preachers.
Told through the experiences of childhood, when the youngest children could be jailed and tortured for 'witchcraft' and where even pets are executed for being allegedly 'mediums'
This bigoted fanatical savagery is now taking place across the Islamic world. The parralels are disturbing.
Richly written , compelling and highly recommended.
3960147
This book covers some of the territory the author covered in her best selling novel, "Green Darkness", that of past lives. The trouble is that the author is unable to capture the magic inherent in her best seller. While this well researched book is of some interest, due to its subject matter, there the similarities stop. Those who have read the other will be somewhat disappointed with this readable, though somewhat tepid, fare.
Here the book revolves around a young New Englander, Amy Delatour, a teenage girl of French Acadian-English lineage, who often goes into a fugue stage where she believes she is a tormented soul named Ange-Marie, a French Acadian in exile in eighteenth century Connecticut who had been separated from her beloved husband, Paul. The shy and bookish  Amy lives in a state of anguish and uncertainty, until one of her high school teachers, Martin Stone, takes an interest in this unusual, highly intelligent young woman. Together they will try to get at the bottom of her mysterious dream states and her fire phobia.
The novel starts out promisingly enough, but it never quite reaches its promise. It has a feel of needing to be further fleshed out. While parts of the book are quite interesting, the reader feels as if one where given a delicious appetizer to tempt the palate, only to find that the main course is not forthcoming. Still, there is enough in this novel to make for a pleasant read. Those who have an interest in past lives regression will surely find this book to be of interest.
4891232
I wish to compliment Kayla on her writing style. The book has a subtle way of holding your interest. Lilith Lace, the main character in the book is a young teenager. However the difficulties of being an adolescent are only the beginning for Lilith.

She is a witch that is crippled due to an accident in childhood, or was it an accident?  Her journey of self-discovery and the trials and errors in witchcraft keep the reader turning the pages. Lilith is seeking answers to her past and what lies ahead in the future. Kayla Krantz offers a storyline interwoven with intrigue. The Chapters reveal the story of this young woman as she comes face to face with the truth.
1426636
In this novel, Barbara Michaels uses the device of a club in Victorian London populated by (the ghosts of?) Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, and others who gather to discuss famous paranormal cases. The men in the club ponder all the known facts about the matters and then offer their opinions as to the nature of the events. In some cases the noted gentlemen argue that the cases were fraud and in others that genuine preternatural forces were at work.

The two incidents covered in Other Worlds were the infamous Bell Witch haunting of antebellum Tennessee, and a less famous but in some ways more shocking case--equally grounded in fact--of a New England family of the mid-1800's, whose home was seemingly invaded by a very creepy poltergeist phenomenon that begins making strange, eerie noises, moves on to rearranging furniture (while the family is IN the home) and from there proceeds from creating menacing "dolls" of each family member, twisted and shaped out of articles of the family's clothing. The case, inexplicably forgotten today except in the most scholarly of paranormal journals, reaches a crescendo I won't give away here but which surely, if true, reveals something stunning about what we hold to be reality.

This book seems to have frustrated some because it does not conclusively debunk or confirm these cases, it tells the details as they are known, composes some possible explanations, and then lets the reader form her own views. I think many wanted a revelation along the lines of "this is how it happened". And of course that's impossible.

This is a fun book for those who have an interest in events that fall outside what we like to feel are "everyday mundane" and its literary tone makes a nice touch considering the period the stories took place in.
1979348
*MATURE CONTENT*

A witch on the edge of madness has a vision that the witch of all witches shall finally enter the world. A daughter of the Jeweled Blood who will call to account the many perversions that have been perpetuated by her people. That was seven centuries ago.

After all that time, a mysterious child wanders the world, treading paths that even the most experienced of the Blood find hard to imagine. She is innocent, yet wary. Known only as "Jaenelle," her power is remarkable but dangerously untamed. Her hunger for knowledge and friendship overwhelm young and ancient alike. Just being in the room with her makes most people want to dedicate their lives to her.

With all the support offered to Jaenelle, it is the people to matter most that may destroy her. It is a matter of time before her future is influenced by the people in her life. The staggering question is whether it will be those with pure intent, or will she be shattered by evil?

Anne Bishop's worlds are intricately amazing. She weaves her dark imagination in unexpected ways, leading readers through completely original fantasy tales.

In this novel, the first of "The Black Jewels Trilogy," the roles of her characters are well defined, and the plot moves forward at a brisk pace, only slowing when the reader needs to catch a breath. There is, however, a strong element of perversion that may upset sensitive--even some less sensitive--readers. Various, sometimes graphic, forms of rape and mutilation to both males and females occur throughout the book. It is not celebrated by the "good guys" at all, but it is ingrained in their current culture. These are the "perversions" brought about by the Blood, and which the prophesied Queen of Witches, known as Witch, is supposed to heal.

This is a difficult novel to review, as the storytelling is excellent, but the story being told is so vicious that many readers will be disturbed. Bishop paints a violated world in need of rescue, but one wonders if this is a world too far gone for hope.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
08/17/2007
2304111
WITCHCRAFT AND MAGIC IN EUROPE - THE TWENTIETH CENTURY is number six in a series of six volumes covering the history of magic and witchcraft in Europe from ancient to modern times. Most of these volumes have included first rate scholarship. The fourth (and last) volume in the series, entitled, "The Period of the Witch Trials," will be published later this year.
Series authors have attempted to define witchcraft and magic for each of the covered periods. The major impression one receives on reading these books is that the concepts or witchcraft and magic as well as the operational definitions are many and varied. As Willem de Blecourt of the Huizinga Institute in the Netherlands notes in his section in this volume, "Local witchcraft discourses are accentuated and even defined by the locally current value systems." Blecourt's article is by far the best of the three in the book.
The first two sections of this book deal with witchcraft (Ronald Hutton, Bristol University) and Satanism (Jean la Fontaine, London School of Economics) as practiced in the 20th Century according to "modern" practitioners. These two sections are really more news article than scholarly essay. Each author has assembled material widely available to the public in autobiographical and biographical form, and to a certain extent "participated" in and "observed" some of the practices discussed. Both authors make it clear that Wicca (the Anglo-Saxon variant) and Satanism have nothing to do with each other. Wicca, or witchcraft as some practitioners prefer to call it, is considered by it's adherents to predate Christianity by several million years. Satanism, on the other hand, is based on the Hebrew word that means "the opposed" and requires historical references to Christianity that Wiccans eschew. The members of these two very different groups apparently loath each other. Many of the Wiccans are feminists while many of the Satanists have connections to neo-Nazis. The rationale for Wiccans is love the Earth, while that of the Satanists appears to be tear it up. Apparently, overly zealous and poorly educated Christians confuse the two. The Wiccans have been invited by the Archbishop to Canterbury Cathedral, the Satanists have not.
My favorite essay is the last, Blecourt's piece on witchcraft in Europe from the anthropologist's perspective. Most of his material comes from France, Spain, and the Netherlands. He includes material on Frisian witches, the work of Pitt-Rivers (an institute at Oxford University is named for him) who became famous for his studies of witchcraft in Andalusia, and Favret-Saada who studied witchcraft in the Bocage in France. Blecourt suggests anthropologists are faced with a perplexing situation in the attempt to study witchcraft-who to adopt as an informer. The person who informs you shapes your experience. The witch, the bewitched, and the unwitcher form a triangle with three perspectives. In the end, each will have a different tale, but you won't be able to get all three of them to confide in you.  Blecourt suggests all the ethnographer can do is see witchcraft from a liminal perspective-i.e. barely at all or at the edge of perception.
583244
Donna Gawells debut novel In the Shadow of Salem is set in the mid-1600s and follows the life and tribulations of her 9th great grandmother Mehitabel Braybrooke during a time of Puritan religious fervor and zealotry. Mehitabel, who was raised by a doting father and a stepmother who despised her, would have been considered a fairly typical teenager today, but in a time when everything was strictly regulated and enforced by the Puritan church and its community, her behavior caused her and her family a lot of trouble.

Gawell does an impressive job of weaving a fictionalized account of her ancestor using extant court records and the knowledge of the piety and zeal of the Puritan culture of mid-1600s. The first person account of this bastard child, arsonist, drunk, accused witch makes the story even more compelling as we see a grim and harsh world through Mehitabels eyes with glimpses of grace within the parishioners and herself. Gawell shows how difficult life was in the New World, especially for servants and those who were marginalized by society. With very few rights, the poor were defenseless and vulnerable to the whim of their employers and the courts. She manages to bring to life her ancestor whose irresponsible actions and naivit as a teen cause big trouble for herself and her loved ones.

This well-researched book helps us understand the kinds of events that led to the infamous Salem witch trials and the mass hysteria that infected the area, including Ipswich, a village near Salem where the story takes place.
870858
This book begins in 1911 with a group of four people entering into a seance - without knowing knowing what they are undertaking they welcome in spirits which petrify them all.
The story then goes on, easily switching back and forth between Edith and Helios, who are still suffering the effects of the seance, and present day London the reader is introduced to Drusilla Blood.
Drue receives a mysterious book in the post, which seemingly connects her to the characters from the past, and opens her up to frightening paranormal events.
This story is a mystery, which can often be strange and a little confusing. However, Miriam Cooke uses her vast knowledge of history and archaeology to ensure that all expert details are correct.
The characters are numerous and very different, from the historical ones - like Edith, who volunteers for the Suffragette movement and wishes to be independent from her parents but needs a guardian because of her 'turns'; and Helios, who wants to selfishly explore the world of the Occult.
In the present day there is Drusilla who has given up her job as an Archaeologist to work in a 'new age' shop. I think she would like to appear as strong but she is vulnerable and needs the support of her friends.
Frank is loud, extrovert and Drue's boss; Jude is her love-interest but their relationship appears doomed from the beginning.
'Drusilla Blood' is a very good paranormal read which leads the reader down a frightening and twisted path. Miriam Cooke writes an ending which leaves her reader speculating how the sequel will develop.
I thank Miriam Cooke for gifting this copy to me and I would recommend it to readers of paranormal mysteries.
1730565
I bought this book on the recommendation of a trusted friend who's a fellow Pagan. While I don't normally read studies since I find them far too similar to school work, this one was slightly different. This one was about a topic I wanted to know about. This book is about the Witch Trials that took place in England in 1600's, more specifically the case of the Device family of Malking Tower in the Pendle Forest.
I will begin this review by saying that while, again, I'm not a fan of studies, this book has so many interesting things in it, that even with it being a history lesson, it was still intriguing. I particularly liked the remakes of the spells the Cunning Folk used in the 1600's. I found it fascinating to see how much spell casting has changed through centuries and yet still even though we cast differently today, they are still very similar to each other in so many ways.
The study itself is heart wrenching. Witch against Witch, accused against enemy, worst of all; young children forced to testify against their families; and forced to live with the knowledge that their statements helped get them killed. It didn't help that the Assizes were a madhouse and hardly anyone was able hear what they were accused of.
I also liked how snippets of the actual propaganda pamphlets were integrated into this book along with actual statements, and photographs of re-enacted spells. It gives the reader a better understanding of how things were done or made to seem.
I found a single error in this work on page 145, other than that the editing was flawless.
This book would be an asset to any witch that enjoys reading up on our histories even if they aren't from England, after all, we are all brothers and sisters in the craft.
I would also suggest this book to anyone curious to understand why we witches stand so united now and why we always remember the Burning Times.

I give this book 5 of 5 paws.
20209
Good story, well written.  Probably more appealing to female readers. I'd  have given it five stars if witchcraft hadn't played a major role in it.
3522845
This is an informative and helpful book on the early modern english witchcraft trials. It focuses on the women who were accused as well as the women who were doing the accusing. It is well researched and it is an interested read. However, it may be a little too feminist for some.
3370712
This book while Christian wasn't particularly Christian - in that you could tell that the characters had a faith but not quite sure if it was in the True God or in themselves but that they were asking the right questions and going in the right direction toward finding the truth.  I like to read the ocassional book that deals with righting the wrong and if it can be done without gruesome details and cussing then that makes it better.  There is a murder of both a teenage girl and a dog - and while some description is given - it isn't as graphic as what one would find in a secular book of this nature.

I was on the edge of my seat while reading this book - I kept flipping the virtual pages and would have easily finished this sooner if I had had the time.  There is some research that was very well done on paganism and witch craft and of course it was from a Christian perspective and it was made clear that witchcraft and other such beliefs goes against God and His Word.

There are also some romance hints between two of the main characters but in keeping with the clean, Christian nature of the book it didn't have any behavior that was inappropriate for an umarried couple.  If you're looking for a book that will put paganism/witchcraft, spell casting, etc in a positive light, this isn't it and you should look elsewhere.  Be warned this is a book written by Christian authors and published by a Christian publishing house and the content will reflect that.  I enjoyed this book and can't wait to read more East Salem, Dani and Tommy - especially as I hope to see their faith deepen and come to depend more on Christ.

**I was provided an ebook copy of this book from BookSneeze (Thomas Nelson) in exchange for my honest review, no other compensation was given.
4640512
Before I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling, I figured it was just another kids' book that had become another childhood fad, like Pok&eacute;mon.  I figured the book would have characters that were laughable in their in their predictability and shallowness.  I soon found out otherwise.  It turned out to be a very interesting novel with a highly developed plot and characters that seem real.  Yet even as it engages the interests of older readers, with its not-so-complicated reading level, it can be comprehended by young readers at the same time.  Harry Potter is one of those rare novels that parents can read with their children.
 Harry Potter, the protagonist of the novel, does not know it, but he is actually a wizard.  The wizards and witches of the world exist in an underground society so that they are not disturbed by the wants of normal people around the world.  Harry lives in a Cinderella-like situation, as his parents have been killed by a powerful evil wizard and he must live with his Aunt and Uncle, who treat him like dust, and his cousin, who continuously bullies him.  But one day his life changes, and he is whisked away to Hogwarts School for Wizards and Witches by an intriguing man who must weigh over 500 pounds.
 At Hogwarts, Harry tries to struggle through the daily activities of life, making friends and enemies alike.  He stumbles onto the plot of a few evil teachers who seek to steal the Sorcerer's Stone to set their master, Voldemort, the evil wizard who killed Harry's parents, loose in full power upon the world.  Harry faces the happiest and most challenging time of his life.
 I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.  I originally read it out of curiosity over what all the fuss was about.  But I will surely read the subsequent novels in the series because it was truly a great book.  Don't think it's a kids' book.  I'm warning you.
82838
This is the story of an old witch (she is 149), Evelyn, who comes from a family of witches.  Actually, it is more of a species of witches.  These women belong to a parallel line of humanity that descended from Lilith, and thus are very long-lived (not having fallen, like Eve).  The only reason they aren't immortal is that they intermarry with mortal men.

Our heroine is an elderly witch who frequently makes herself appear to be a young woman.  As such, she meets a man who reminds her profoundly of the one great love of her life.  Actually, she becomes convinced that he, in some ways, is her true love reborn.

A subplot involves an accusation of murder among the witches, who police their own, and our heroine tries to clear the name of the accused.

This book is actually full of a sly sort of humor that tints a strangely moving story of what constitutes true love, family.  And I loved what happens to witches when they die, and I won't tell here!

The first read through, I just read it fast to find out what would happen.  I then liked it enough that I read it again much slower, and enjoyed it even more.  I look forward to reading more of this author.
3648999
The novel describes the brutal events in 1892 in Portland, Maine. Maggie Keene's body is found. It appears to be a ritualistic killing with her body severely mutilated.

Deputy Marshall Archie Lean is the primary investigator but this case is like nothing he's ever seen. Dr. Virgil Steig asks one of his former students for help. Perceval Grey is a brilliant criminalist. He's part Abenaki Indian and a Pinkerton agent.

There are a number of uncanny similarities in this plot to Matthew Pearl's recent novel, "The Technologists."

This novel takes place in Portland, Maine in 1892, Pearl's mystery occurs in 1868 in Boston. Perceval Grey uses modern investigatory methods and possesses a unique understanding of people and possible motives. This is similiar to Marcus Mansfield in Pearl's novel. Mansfield is about to graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is scientific in his work.

Both men are ahead of their times in using the scientific method of investigating. In addition, there is a bright young woman helping with the investigation in both novels and both novels bring in witchcraft as having something to do with the story.

In "The Truth of All Things," the author demonstrates his talent for making his characters believable and worthy of our interest. However, this can result in some of the characters being rather like cardboard charactures.

The exception is Archie Lean. We become interested in him not only for his determination to solve the case but he is also a family man. He and his wife are expecting a child. Thier concern for their crowded home and the economics of an expanding family are things most readers can relate to.

Helen Prescott assists the investigators considerably. She is a historian, knowledgable in the history of the Salem witch trials. She's a modern woman of the day and doesn't let the other characters dictate what she should do.

It is the connection to the Salem witch history that sets this novel apart. We are given information on the names and details of the people who were tried for being witches in Salem and this is tied in with the events of 1892.

The action moves slowly as other women are killed and the investigators sift through the clues. However, it all comes together nicely in a suspenseful conclusion.

3 1/2 start moving up to 4.