Customer Reviews

The Book of Shadows

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

In France, six year old Herculine watches her mother die a horrible weird death leaving the child to fend for herself. Herculine arrives at the "stone", the holy house at C--- where the nuns take her in as the only scholarship student praying she one day will see God like they do. Years later, unable to resist, Herculine commits sins that require severe punishment as fears of evil and witchcraft are whispered among the residents of C----.

While being incarcerated, four demons visit Herculine. The demon priest Father Louis, the damned Madeleine, the demonic Asmodei, and the evil witch Sebastiana come to open her mind to the full realm of pleasure. Herculine escapes with her rescuers to set on a quest to learn why she is the chosen. Her mission is filled with erotic dark magic and death as a revolution fueled by otherworldly madness leads to mass insanity and murder.

Though well written in a weird meandering way filled with surprising shockers, BOOK OF SHADOWS is not for everyone as the story line contains graphic scenes of cruelty, abuse, and terror. The story line takes the traditional elements of a gothic novel (innocent vulnerable female, dark menacing males and a remote foreboding abode), but turns them upside down with a spin away from the genre due to the self-discovery of the dark side by the heroine. Herculine, who narrates the tale, keeps the center from imploding into a sea of uncontrollable weirdness so that the audience has an entertaining yet strange historical horror novel.

Harriet Klausner

Most books on Witchcraft today (be they fiction or non) tend to stick to either the actual Wiccan/Pagan religions, or rely on the most characteristic 'Hollywood Witch'- the beautiful woman with a broomstick who flies, is instantly powerful, etc. This book surprised me in many ways- most of all the main character's...interesting state. That and the authors' identification of a 'true Witch' by a certain mark in the eyes. This book is written with a very historical idea of Witches in mind- the wild sex of a Sabbat (which Reese terms an esbat, but I'm not complaining, fiction has a certain amount of allowance for poetic changes), the accompaniment of an incubus and succubus, the shape changing familiar, and most of all, the superstitions and spells/charms that were passed between the sisters were all of historical note. =) Take this from a modern day, real Witch- this is an excellent fictional read, and may educate you into France's, and some of Witchcraft's more bloody side of history. My hat's off to James Reese. I want a sequel, now, please....

It's interesting how a few reviewers have mentioned that they stopped at page 400. I stopped at 398, just a few pages after the "Greek Supper" section.

Every book has good points and bad points. I just wish that this one had more good points.

Good points: Character description - I had a very good idea of what each character looked like. Suspense scenes (when they managed to appear) - the scene with Herculine hiding in the lesser library while attempting to escape had me right there with her, cheering her on.

Bad points: Rambling narrative - far too many words to describe too little plot. This was the main problem. This book could have been condensed into at least half its size. Did we really need to know the endless, inane details of how Madeleine and Father Louis wound up as ghosts? Tangential characters - did we really need to know about the grandfather of Sebastiana's servant? Did we really need to know about the deformed Sabine? Sebastiana's B.O.S. - Good heavens, she's as wordy as Herculine (if not more!).

The other thing that bothered me (and I have no idea as to why the author did this) was the whole naming of cities and places as C__________ or Q _________ or X __________ or D___________. It's like someone spilled a few pieces of alphabet soup onto a map of France.

And yes, some Wiccan readers have gotten upset about the depiction of witches in the book (I'm Wiccan myself), but you have to bear in mind that this is fiction and he's not depicting Wiccans.

The bottom line is that this story had a LOT of potential. I liked Herculine, but her verbose description almost killed me. I really wanted to learn more about Asmodei - Lestat-like? Yeah, you could say that. Sexy? Very. Smarmy? Absolutely! - all the makings of an interesting character. I liked the setting of the book. But it just didn't all gel together.

The worst part is, I got this book and the next two in the series as gifts, which made me want to like this book even more. Sorry, Mr. Reese, but I have to give this one a thumbs-down.

A disappointing novel.

What started out with action virtually leaping off the first hundred pages, it quickly turned into a chore to finish.

Herculine, orphaned early in life and taken in by nuns of a French convent, is treated little more than a slave and eventually charged with witchcraft. She is rescued from certain death by the witch, Sebastina and whisked away to the rambling estate Sebastina calls home. Herculine soon starts to unravel the mysteries that surround her as she is plunged into the world of dark magic.

While the prose was good, the story jumped around, making it difficult to keep up with at times. Even after reaching the end of the story, I never could gain empathy for any of the characters as there was no color to them; nothing to make me enthralled with their lives.

Herculine was lifeless as were the other characters. She had no personality. Even Herculine's strange "condition" seemed out of place and I was unable to see how it was relevant to the story.

Mr. Reese made an attempt at making it an erotic novel but fell short. While it wasn't pornographic by any means, it lacked the softness of eroticism and did nothing to lend an air of excitement.

The blurbs hooked me into buying the book, but in the end, it was a complete waste of time. Not a book I would recommend.

I bought this book for my wife thinking that this book was about the TV show Charmed because she is a closet fan, but I found out at the last minute that it was not at all conected to the show. So out of gratitude for me, my wife read it, and enjoyed it tremulously. She then wanted me to read the book as well. So I finally got around to it, and I was pleasantly surprise by how good it was. James Reese creates a daring fantasy on the same leave as Anne Rice does for her Vampire tales that is daunting, erotic, and horrifying all at once, and the book takes you though a passage of self discovery and rebellion all while you are turn the page in record speed. This is the first novel I have read by James Reese, and for certain, it will not be the last.

I hope he writes a sequel.

James Reese can certainly write good prose, but writing style, per se, is not the problem with "The Book Of Shadows." The book's major flaw is too many words without enough continuity and consistency in the telling of the tale. The novel reads like a series of fragmented stories and events, told in the present and through flashbacks, which smother the link to the main characters. The possibility of bonding to these characters is subsequently lost in the miasma. I truly wanted to feel sympathy for the people and "beings" portrayed here, but any budding feelings I may have had initially were lost after the first 300 pages.

Our heroine, Herculine, grows up an orphan at a French convent in 19th-century Brittany. She has no clue as to her identity, but does know that she is very different from her classmates in more ways than she can understand. Herculine is accused of witchcraft, after a series of horrifying events occur at the convent, and is subsequently imprisoned to await mortal judgment. Sebastiana d'Azur, a beautiful witch, and Herculine's "Soror Mystica," sweeps in to rescue the girl and spirits her away to Ravndal, an exotic retreat, where she is informed of her destiny. Herculine is apparently the only one who can liberate two lovers chained to earth forever. The very long tale of Father Louis and Madeleine de la Mettrie, who once lived in 18th-century France, is chronicled. These two beings, now elemental spirits, await Herculine's tuition in sorcery and hope for their release at her hand. At this point, some 300 pages into the story, the reader is further distracted with the tale of Sebastiana's apprenticeship in the Craft, Louis' trial for witchcraft, the terror of the French Revolution's aftermath, and the general comings and goings of a cast of gothic characters. All these tales are fascinating, to be sure, but there are too many, too late. Yet it is during these story fragments within a plotline that Reese comes into his own. His research is impeccable and his writing takes-off, as if no longer restrained by the tired chronicle of Herculine.

I was very disappointed in this book, Mr. Reese's first effort. I had expected much, and he does deliver partially, with the historical scope of the novel, the well written prose, and some of his sweeping stories. I forced myself to finish the book, even though I read quickly through the last hundred pages, hoping I would find my time well spent. The material is here, as is the talent, but the novel fails in the compilation.
JANA

I finished reading this book only to see if it had a point. It didn't. It is a pointless, meandering collection of of erotic and historical snippets peppered with French phrases. The book seems like the author's brain dump of these collected tidbits that was published without being edited.

The description of the book on the cover is completely misleading. A total waste of time and money.

After reading the other reviews, I felt compelled to write this review. This is one of my favorite books. The people who are "searching for a storyline" don't seem to get the book. There are basically 3 seperate stories within, each unique and enjoyable.

Reese creates a very enriched world and believable characters. I found Herculine to be very likeable, even though she was naive and sometimes foolish. But it was in the context of her character, which made her come alive, believable, and easy to sympathize with. Reese also creates vivid worlds and settings with his somewhat gaudy, but tasteful, prose.

Despite Reese's strength in character development and imagery, he does have a hard time 'summing things up,' for a lack of a better term, which causes the story to drag at times. There are parts that could be written in one page, but it takes Reese two or three.

So, be prepared for a long read. But in my own opinion, "The Book of Shadows" was very enjoyable, despite the dragging.

When I read, I do so for the oppportunity to "get away", to go someplace in my imagination that -- but for the book I am reading--would be inaccessible to me. That was The Book of Shadows -- I relished the utter richness of the language that James Reese has such facility with and vividly visualized the imagery that he creates. The story is evocative, disturbing, and challenging.

The Book of Shadows is a novel well-worth reading, by a young novelist at the beginning of what promises to be a promising career.