Ghostlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley or Rosemary Edghill

Ok, well aside from the fact that Bradley did not truly write this series (apparently an author named Rosemary Edghill did), I can find plenty of other faults with it. What should be an interesting look into magick and rituals, instead becomes a drama with weak characters. And considering this is the first book in a series of 4, there's a whole lot of mess to wade through.

Truth is a researcher. She puts everything forward in cold logic, well aside from the fact that she works with the paranormal. But she has a bit of a dark past. Her father, who disappeared when she was a toddler on the same night her mother died, was associated with the occult and had been leading a ritual that went terribly wrong. But, with certain things being brought to light, Truth decides to research and write his biography and to do so, she goes back to the house where everything went down.

Truth is a weak character. She claims to be logical and disbelieving of so many things. But then she immediately starts to "see" things and wonder what's going on. All while still claiming she doesn't believe any of it. It's quite maddening actually. And she does that same waffling on her feelings about the other characters in the book too. And Julian, how she couldn't see his true character is beyond me. It's quite obvious even without the heavy handed hints the author gives as to his background. All the other characters are filler and really aren't that interesting. Which is a shame, because I bet their stories would have been just as interesting as Truth's.

For most of the book the plot is slow-paced. But then, immediately at the end it speeds up and is way too fast. Add in the fact that the author thinks you understand what's going on without having been given any description or explanation, and it can leave you thoroughly confused. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on with the Michael character. While I thought the instances of magick were interesting, the character's conversations about it are repetitive and dull. If not for that little bit of action, the rest of the book would be Truth wandering around thinking about different things and being indecisive.

It just wasn't a well written book which is unfortunate because I have the next two books in the series waiting on my bookshelf to be read. And now I don't really want to. But alas, I intend to finish what I start. I can only hope they'll be better than this one.

Ghostlight
Copyright 1995
304 pages