Witchlight

Rating:
Summary: Not great
Review: I liked the Avalon series a bit, even if the characters were a touch one dimensionsal at times. I did not like this book. The story is very slow and boring...there are a couple of places where things of signifigance actually happen and advance the plot, and the ending is good, but to get to them you have to read 200 pages of Winter's problems. It's just not interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Not her best work
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Not her best work
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Another excellent book from Bradley
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Ghostlight
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Bit Better Than Ghostlight.
Review: I thought it was better than Ghostlight. But it was still not interesting enough, the only interesting parts were confusing!

Rating:
Summary: Slow starter, but keep reading
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: This book is insulting to wiccans
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: not what I expected
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Ghostlight
Review: 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.