A Season with the Witch by J.W. Ocker

 Note:  This blog was first run in 2018 but we thought it was worth running again!

Reviewed by Christy

            J.W. Ocker likes to travel quite a bit. But his destinations are almost always weird – so much so that he regularly documents his adventures in the travelogue blog Odd Things I’ve Seen. He’s written several books on his travels including Poe-Land: The Hallowed Haunts of Edgar Allan Poe.  To write  A Season with the Witch, he moves his wife and daughters into Salem, MA for the entire month of October to observe and participate in their Haunted Happenings. Anyone with a love of history and all things weird and creepy would probably get a kick out of Salem during the month of Halloween. Just be sure to book many, many months in advance.

            Ocker begins with a brief overview of the Salem Witch Trials and America’s fascination with them. He describes historical sites pertinent to the trials including grave sites, judges’ homes, and where the gallows supposedly stood. (Behind a Walgreens now, in case you’re interested.) He then goes on to discuss the various kitschy museums around town and even throws in some pirate and maritime history for good measure. He interviews street performers, street preachers, shop and restaurant owners, actual witches who live and practice in Salem, and regular every day Salemites. He eats carnival food and drinks Candy Corntinis. (Any autumn or Halloween themed cocktail he sees, he tries.) He visits the filming locations for movies like Hocus Pocus, The Lords of Salem and a string of Salem-related episodes of Bewitched. He also talks in depth about the often-maligned statue of Elizabeth Montgomery. On the big night he and his wife take their daughters trick or treating down a street where the residents sit on their porches to hand out candy. (And in one case, pumpkin pie jello shots for the adults!) One cheery resident wrote down where each trick or treater was from (she was already up to six different states), and another proclaimed he had given out 900 pieces of candy the previous year. And that’s not even getting into the wild party that is Essex Pedestrian Mall on Halloween Night.

            This book was so much fun to read. Ocker’s writing is warm, conversational, and often times laugh out loud funny. As a self-described “spooky person”, he was clearly having a blast living in and writing about Salem, and it’s contagious.  Although I would love to visit Salem myself one day I already feel like I’ve at least passed through.

            The only negative thing I can say about A Season with the Witch is that it is full of simple grammatical and spelling mistakes. He gets names wrong (including Jack Skellington and Rob Zombie’s wife), and it seems as if a more thorough proof reading was skipped. I’m not sure why that would be unless they were rushing to get it out in time for Halloween. Regardless, while irritating, it wasn’t enough to damper my enjoyment. I think anyone who is interested in history, pop culture, travel, or Halloween will enjoy this book immensely.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Historian Diana Bishop is researching a collection of manuscripts in the Bodleian Library in Oxford when one of the manuscripts seems to glow at her touch.  Being a witch, Diana isn’t quite as flummoxed as some mere human might be, but it’s definitely something very strange.  She decides to quietly send the manuscript back until she can make sense as to what has just happened.

But this incident hasn’t gone unnoticed.  Diana has just attracted the attention of a number of witches and other creatures, including a vampire--a very alluring vampire.

I’d heard a lot about this book, the first in a trilogy, and even more after it was turned into a well-reviewed TV series.  Harkness does a marvelous job of creating a world filled with strong non-human characters and complex societies.  There are three basic groups:  witches, vampires, and daemons, most of who regard other creatures as suspect at best and deadly enemies at worst.  There is a ruling council composed of three representatives of each species, and they are in charge of interpreting the rules and policing behaviors that might be detrimental to the creatures’ existence.  Most of the rules are in place to keep humans from finding out that the various creatures do exist. Running afoul of the Council can lead to severe consequences, including death.

Harkness also does a splendid job of incorporating history into the books.  Given that vampires can live a very long time, there are characters who can claim acquaintance with, say, Shakespeare, and who can remember what it was like to live through historical time periods from the Black Death to Nazi Germany.

While some would find it odd, there’s also a strong scientific thread running through the book as some of the characters seek to find reasons why the various creatures are failing to reproduce. And of course, vampires are always very interested in blood….

Besides the historical and the fantastical, there are romances and complex family connections. The characters are passionate, devoted, loyal, devious, and occasionally frightening.  As a reader I got caught up in their worlds and was up early turning pages to see what would happen next.

The second book is Shadow of Night, followed by The Book of Life.  There is a fourth book set in the same world with some familiar characters, Time’s Convert.

In the Company of Witches by Auralee Wallace

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Brynn Warren has grown up knowing that she was a Warren witch—the very best witches—and that her family has watched over the town of Evenfall for generations. Left orphaned at a young age, Brynn was raised by her two aunts, gentle Izzy and feisty (to put it mildly) Nora, and Uncle Gideon in the family home.  Every Warren witch has gifts, but every one also has a special talent that sets him or her apart.  Izzy, for example, is a kitchen witch; her gifts come through most strongly in her cooking so that someone feeling nervous might eat one of Izzy’s cookies and suddenly feel calmer. Nora is a botanical witch, and Brynn is a witch of the dead:  one who can talk to spirits and pass along a final message.

Brynn’s gift would be a really great one to have at the moment, after Constance Graves has gone and gotten herself murdered in the Warren family B&B, especially since Aunt Nora is shaping up to be the prime suspect. The problem is that since her husband’s death, Brynn hasn’t been able to communicate with the dead. Her powers don’t seem to work anymore—and she’s not sure she even wants them to.

This first in series book got off to a rousing start and just kept going.  Wallace does a good job of setting up the world, letting us know about some of the rules, introducing characters gradually, and creating a strong plot.  There was some good description that enlivened the proceedings, with purple sparks flying, the sound of frogs (very handy things, frogs), and other descriptions of sights, sounds, and smells. The pool of suspects – well, other than Aunt Nora—had some depth, although a couple were of the just mean people variety.

I found this to be a very entertaining book.  I especially liked the character development of the Warren family; Brynn herself has to face changes, but she also begins to see her relatives in a new light.  It was a nice bit of showing rather than telling. I liked the strong personalities, even explosive Nora.

The second book in the series, When the Crow’s Away, is scheduled for April 2022. I’m already looking forward to a return visit to Evenfall.

Three Witches in a Small Town by Willie E. Dalton

Reviewed by Jeanne

Sisters Agatha, Maeve, and Cerulean have all left their small hometown in the mountains to make their own way in the world, but when Mamaw Mabry calls, they return. Mamaw feels that her time is drawing near.  She wants the girls to have a last chance to learn from her before she departs this world for the next.

The girls are devoted to their grandmother, having grown up under her watchful eye.  They have always known that they have certain gifts—reading tea leaves, premonitions, and the like—but now Mamaw needs them to hone these gifts and to accept their destinies as Appalachian witches.  They will need to help their community once she is gone.

Bound by love to Mabry, her granddaughters are determined to do what they can to please her-- but can these girls be happy living in a small town?

This book is by local author Willie E. Dalton who won the Jan-Carol Publishing Believe and Achieve Award.  It’s more of a romance than I expected; it’s pretty obvious from the beginning that each sister is going to find a too good to be true man to adore her. Somehow I don’t get a strong sense of place other than rural.  Briars and dirt roads are pretty much everywhere as are Home Depots and Targets.  I would like to have seen more character development and more showing and less telling.

The New Age/ Appalachian witch parts were well done; more description and feeling came through.  The strong ties to herbs and the natural world were also bright spots.

Overall, I think this is a good debut.  The parts written from Mabry’s point of view are the strongest and some of the scenes near the end are very nice indeed.  I’d have enjoyed it more if it had been a little more fleshed out in terms of characters and place, but I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for local tales brushed with magic.

Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

Reviewed by Jeanne

Nine year old Tiffany is the granddaughter of a shepherd who may or may not have been a witch.  She sees the world in unusual ways, and when a creature tries to trespass, she takes it out quickly. Okay, she may have used her baby brother as bait, but needs must, right?

The creature in the river isn’t the only oddity around; Tiffany has caught glimpses of some six inch high blue men who have flaming red hair and seem to be wearing kilts—well, the ones who are wearing anything at all. These are the Nac Mac Feegle, the Wee Free Men, also known as pictsies (definitely not pixies).  They are immensely strong, and born for drinking, fighting, stealing, and fleeing in terror at lawyers.  They’re also leery of Tiffany who they call a“wee bigjob hag” and (horrors!) she can write things down.  While not her first choice of allies, they become indispensable when she has to find her missing brother.

Soon Tiffany will find herself facing a fearsome Queen, a horde of nightmares, and the prospect of matrimony. How will she ever prevail?

I have enjoyed several of Pratchett’s Discworld novels, but I have to say I find the Tiffany Aching tales to be particularly enchanting.  They have Pratchett’s trademark humor—lines that beg to be read aloud to someone, even if you have to chase them down to do it.  One of my favorite exchanges is when Tiffany approaches a traveling teacher and says she has a question about zoology:

 “Zoology, eh?  That’s a big word, isn’t it.”

“No, actually, it isn’t,” said Tiffany. “Patronizing is a big word.  Zoology is really quite short.”

In another passage, he comments that people were glad to see the teachers because they would tell a child enough to stop him asking questions, but they wanted the teachers gone by sundown for fear they’d steal chickens. I will spare you other favorite sections—oh, how I want to tell you about the teachers under the stars! —but this will give you a bit of the flavor.

However, the books aren’t just fluff and fun.  There’s a thread about figuring out who people really are.  Tiffany’s beloved grandmother was a rough, taciturn old woman who took care of sheep.  She was respected in the community for her abilities, with folks leaving her favorite Jolly Sailor tobacco as payment, but Tiffany begins to wonder if there was more to Granny than she thought.  More to the point, is there more to Tiffany than she knows?

There are also some shrewd and pointed observations about society and human behavior along the way, and the books have uncommon heart. Tiffany finds there were consequences for her previous actions, but she is brave, resourceful, and takes responsibility.  She will set things right because she caused the problem, even if she didn’t mean to.

I think if I could live up to Pratchett’s ideals I would be a better person and the world would a better place.

A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett

Reviewed by Jeanne

I love Book Bingo.  It really pushes me to read outside my usual mysteries and I find books I love that I would not have picked up otherwise. I had a “Read an Award Winning Book” square and just happened to see this book qualified.  I hesitated only because this was a second book in a Discworld YA subseries but book one wasn’t readily available.  I decided to chance it.

Tiffany Aching, one time Queen of the Nac Mac Feegle aka The Wee Free Men aka Pictsies aka Persons or Persons Unknown and Believed to Be Armed, is on her way to her apprenticeship in magic.  Her teacher is Miss Level who is twins. . . well, more precisely, she is one person with two bodies. She’s going to help Tiffany with the basics of being a witch which is not exactly what people might think. Oh, there’s some magic to be sure, but it’s more about caretaking—looking out for those around you, human or otherwise.

But unbeknownst to Tiffany, there is something looking for her, something drawn to her power.  The Wee Free Men set out to save their erstwhile queen, which is quite the challenge when one is six inches high and Tiffany is many miles away.  The way they resolve this problems makes for much comedy relief as the menace draws closer.

As with all of Pratchett’s work, there is a bit of social commentary along with side-splitting humor and remarkable word-smithing.  My favorite from this book is found in an exchange between Tiffany and Miss Level, in which Tiffany is asked if her Granny Aching was a witch.  Tiffany doesn’t think so, but after Miss Level asks if Granny helped people, Tiffany responds by saying that her granny made people help each other.  The witch responds, “Well, there’s not many of us who are that good.”

This resonates even more with me in these difficult times.  Getting people to help each other is indeed a powerful magic.

Yes, I have bought a copy of the first book to read because I really need to know how she defeated the evil with a frying pan.