Witchlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley

After the mess that was Ghostlight (book one in the Light series) I was relieved to find this one was written a little better. It isn't really necessary to read them in order, although you will miss out a little on the backstory of some characters. And there's been some uproar about the fact that this book was co-authored (ghostwritten, completely written, noone seems to know for sure) by someone other than Marion Zimmer Bradley, despite her name being on the cover.

When Winter Musgrave finds herself in an old house all she remembers is that she released herself from a mental institution. The rest of her past is fuzzy, and strange occurrences keep happening around her, the worst of which being the mutilated animals on her doorstep. Having been a powerful trader on the stock exchange, Winter is surprised to learn that she once went to the local college and was studying the arts, but left before she was to have graduated. Realizing that the phenomena happening is getting more violent though, she desperately seeks her friends from back then, hoping they can fill in the gaps before it is too late.

Winter bounces all over the place in personality. She goes from being cold to hopeful to reminiscent and back again over the spectrum. This is to be expected, she's undergone a lot of stress. But it just didn't feel genuine at times. In fact, the only character who really felt real was Truth, and maybe that's because she was in the first book. The rest were just flat characters who were there to serve a purpose. At least they had some interesting histories though, so you did care about where they came from.

This book started out great. You really wanted to know what happened to Winter and cheered for her when she started making discoveries about herself. But by the end of the book, the pace was all off and things started happening too quickly. The author also assumes that the reader has more than a base knowledge of the occult/magic/etc. and if you don't, it can make the concepts of this book difficult to understand. I had a general idea of what was going on, but I suspect I missed a lot of the nuances that having a broader knowledge depth would have given me. It just made the book more difficult to read.

I think someone more familiar with the occult and magic in different forms might enjoy this book more than the average person. It definitely has a specific audience unlike some of the other books with Bradley's name on the cover. I've got one more of the Light series at home that I'll probably read, but they're definitely not books I would seek out otherwise.

Witchlight
Copyright 1996
303 pages

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