There is just so much going on in this one that it is rather
bewildering. Counting off some of the things: the Salem Witch Hunt, Morgan le
Fay from the Arthurian legend, a guest appearance by a Greek Goddess, a
brief scene starring a ghost, barely veiled political commentary, also barely
veiled criticism of religious bigotry – phew! Add to this the authors’ own new
creations in modern day New Orleans. That’s quite a bit.
Hazel Abbot owns a book shop in New Orleans. She is
looking forward to Halloween since October is the time she sells more than at
any other time in the year. This Halloween however seems to have other plans
for her. First she is visited by one Sarah Hutchinson from another time –
1962 – who also just happens to be a great-(many greats here)-aunt. Sarah was
arrested during the infamous witch hunt and in an effort to escape the trials
she’s somehow blundered many years ahead in time. Then an entirely too yummy
Raven Dare appears. Raven is a shadow hunter whose job is to send evil into
hell. There is some complicated explanation about Raven being cursed to do this
job and being tied to Morgan le Fay (Queen Witch). Morgan summons Hazel, Sarah
and Raven because seemingly evil infiltrated the current timeline from 1962
when Sarah opened a portal for her escape, landing a few years in the past and
having grown super strong by now. Hazel, it seems, is a very powerful witch
just waiting to be uncovered. Sarah has this unnamed deep feeling and constant
longing for Ayotunde, who was a slave in
Sarah’s father’s house and who was also in prison with Sarah being accused of
witchery. Somehow Sarah manages to bring Ayotunde also into the
current timeline. Now they are a coven who have to fight off a fast resurrecting
‘everything evil’, Blaise, who is gaining strength from the evil that used
Sarah’s portal to leave 1962. The task is to send all those who belong to 1962
back to whence they came thus setting the balance back.
Like we said, there is just way too
much going on. We are sure that we understand the whole ‘curse’ that Raven has
going with Morgan. We are also not too convinced about Raven being ‘forced’ to
have an on-again-off-again sexual relationship with Morgan (we’re not convinced
about the ‘force’ factor). We quite like Hazel especially the bit where she
says that Raven should give them a chance. That was a touching dialogue. Both
romances (Sarah- Ayotunde
and Hazel-Raven) are rather sweet. It is everything else that is kind of
jumbled. The three witches (Hazel, Sarah and Ayotunde) become
proficient with almost no training. Raven does the Raven thing with banshees
and hellhounds amongst other beings. But all four of them pale in comparison to
Morgan le Fay. We absolutely loved
her and wish she’d had got her own romance.
While reading this we could almost see the two authors
getting a little tipsy over glasses of wine and gleefully creating a cauldron
with this tale into which they happily threw in whatever they could get their
hands on. It is clear that they are having fun with this one and it is intended
to be taken with the same light-hearted tongue-in-cheek-ness with which it has
been conjured up.
This is a hit-or-miss which was mostly a miss for us in
terms of the story but hit in Morgan, some dialogues and Hazel.
⭐⭐★
