Customer Reviews

The Book of Spirits

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THE BOOK OF SPIRITS is the sequel to James Reese's THE BOOK OF SHADOWS, the first volume in the saga of Herculine, a child of Hermes and Aphrodite and a timid witch with a dual gender who is unaware of the strength of her powers.

We join Herculine in the year 1826 on a long ocean crossing from France to Virginia. Aboard the ship, Herculine becomes entranced by violet-eyed Celia, a young slave possessed of an astounding beauty. After a grueling voyage, during which Herculine keeps a steady eye on Celia and her master, the ship docks in Richmond. There, Herculine is led to a damaged old seeress, Mother-of-Venus. She tells Herculine what the future holds, a future entwined with that of Celia's. Recognizing Herculine as a witch of some peculiar uniqueness, Mammy Venus prepares her for the difficult task of freeing Celia. Aiding in the plot for flight is none other than Edgar Poe, his sister Rosalie, and his mother Eliza Poe, all of whom figure prominently into the story.

Poe's mother makes an appearance as the ghost she is by 1826, recounting her part in the horrific Richmond Theater fire, in which it is said that over 70 people died. James Reese has taken the events of this tragic night and imagined a whole new set of circumstances for the fire's origin, one involving mischievous spirits. Old Mammy Venus was there that long-ago night with her owners, for she was also a slave, whole and healthy. By the end of that dreadful day, she was clinging to life by a thread, severely burned and disfigured from her heroic attempts to save trapped and disoriented victims. Mammy's past, so full of agony and cruelty, has made her adamant that Celia must be wrenched away from her abusive master, and Herculine is the one who must do it.

Herculine succeeds, but finds herself tempted to abuse Celia similarly, for she grievously has been smitten since first she laid eyes on her. Driven by this obsession, Herculine casts a love spell over her, bewitching her completely, but soon shrinks in self-disgust. Horrified at what she has done, she flees to Manhattan to seek the counsel of a host of witches at a place called Cyprian House. During her quite extended stay there, dressing in female attire, Herculine learns the ways of the House, entertaining herself --- and her colorful housemates --- in a cornucopia of sexual experiments and delights.

Once Herculine has been given an answer to her dilemma --- how to unbewitch Celia --- she begins her return trip home. Finding that Celia has fled their house back in Florida, Herculine embarks on a search that takes her into Indian country, where she beseeches everyone she meets to give her word of Celia's whereabouts. Her journey becomes a penance of sorts, during which her desire to set things right begins to outweigh her love for Celia. As she traces Celia's trail, she is warned about Sweet Marie, an inaptly named and very nasty witch of impressive power. Nonetheless, she seeks Sweet Marie's aid in finding Celia. Herculine may have regretted that once she was in her grasp, for Sweet Marie has a mean streak to end all mean streaks.

THE BOOK OF SPIRITS is exceptionally well researched. One gets the feeling that Reese wanted to recount history in a new and different way, so he used witches and spirits as his medium. It flows with prose so beautiful that it borders on poetry. But, beware, it is not for the faint of heart. Fans of Anne Rice will relish this newcomer with his talent for the Gothic tale, spun with his darkly witty and bizarre imagination.

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

I have waited many months for this book - the sequel to The Book of Shadows, which I loved. I have to say the wait was worth it. The Book of Spirits continues to tell the story of Herculine, this time in America in the early 1800's. Lots of history here, plenty of "other-worldliness", and a story that kept me turning the pages. Anne Rice, who is quoted on the front of the book, is right. It is wonderful to have James Reese exploring and transcending the gothic genre.

Fans of the tales of Herculine can finally rejoice that we have her back in our midst! Mr. Reese has triumphed with the sequel to his dark and lovely "Shadows." "Spirits" is an extraordinary plunge into the further adventures of the witch Herculine, who has now made it Stateside. One can almost feel the humidity in Mr. Reese's descriptive prose -- the sentences are pure poetry and his characters are so vividly drawn that we just dive in.

I was really sad when I finished reading this book. I wanted it to go on forever! But I guess I shall just have to wait for Reese's next book.

This story was quite poignant, bringing Herculine's character out even more vividly than in the first book. Seeing her growth as she forges into a new country was exciting; through her eyes we witness haunting new places, and new characters stunningly visualized by Reese's great skill.

The author took many liberties with historical characters, events, and places, but that was more than okay with me! After all, that's what creative writing is all about, right?

I love Herculine even more after reading this book. Her flaws and tragic blunders only make her more likeable. I only hope Mr. Reese will come up with more adventures from Herculine SOON!

I found this story to be more focused on gore than on storyline or characterisation. Hurculine is in Virginia now and there are some interesting characters but none of them are as fleshed out as they should be. Book Of Shadows was far more elegant in prose and left haunting imagery in my head. This one seems a little flat. Still an interesting story, but not as good as the first.

I read and enjoyed Reese's first book, Book of Shadows (even though it was overly descriptive for my tastes), so I bought this second book in the series. Unfortunately, I'm finding it very hard to get through because, even though the story itself is interesting, there's such a burdensome amount of description that I find myself skimming whole pages just to find the tiny bits of story hidden in them. While the first book was written with lovely language (and I enjoy a book that pays attention to the actual words used as well as the story being told), this one seems to be trying too hard. There's a lot of trite phrasing, such as "I walked, nay ran...", "I glanced, nay stared...", over and over again, and when I say everything is described in grand detail, I mean EVERYthing. Every movement, every article of furniture in a room, every inch of skin on all of the characters. Yes, it's well-researched, but it's almost as if Reese wanted everyone to know just how much time he spent researching everything by cramming every single piece of information into this story. I'm a third of the way through the book so far and Herculine has only just been told what this book's quest will be!

I honestly believe that if Reese had trimmed this book by at least half, it would have become a bestseller. As it is, it's simply too much work to slog through, even for those of us who love language and historical fiction.

The narrator and protagonist of the book is Herculine, a hermaphrodite witch who is a tad more feminine than masculine, and so I find it more comfortable to discuss Herculine as as though she were a woman.

In this trilogy, the author creates a story about witches that includes a richer, more cogent, and more fascinating mythos of the witch than anything I've seen since the witch novels of Andre Norton. The witches in Reese's story are even more interesting and engaging than Anne Rice's Mayfair matriarchs, possibly due to the fact that they are not all of one family, but individuals and strangers sharing the common tie of witchcraft. Only that witches in this novel are a race of people, rather than a religion or a family like Rice's Mayfairs. Reese's witches are a separate race, related but apart from humanity. The clever concept of witches as a race enables the author to introduce a greater variety of characters from practically all walks of life, making for a richer, more engrossing story. The characters themselves are so interesting that you feel impelled to learn more about them. Individual novels could be written about any one of the witches in the book, or from many of the support characters.

Though it is easy to understand why the prose may annoy some readers, I read it as an experiment in prose styles. Remember that the narrator, Herculine, is a French witch writing in the English of the early 19th century. The flamboyant, overwrought sentences are therefore a good fit, and form a credible prose style for a character of her time and background. If you are a reader of victorian prose, especially women's writing, the prose may remind you of the novels of Rhoda Broughton (the niece of J. Sheridan Le Fanu), or Ellen Wood.

Though the prose in itself was very interesting to read, there was only one prose style in the book--Herculine's, with brief, negligible samples of prose from other characters. I was tempted to make a comparison to A.S. Byatt's Possession, but I can't because Byatt's book offers a much greater variety of prose styles very well executed.

The Book of Spirits combines several genres. It is fantasy science fiction, but to a greater degree, it is a historical romance. Possibly this is why the book was so interesting. You feel caught up in the sweep of history, as Reese writes in a lot of early 19th century events occurring in America. For example, Herculine finds herself escorting a slave woman to freedom in Florida, of all places. You'd think they would have gone north, but no. Also, Herculine and related characters meet the young Edgar Allan Poe, and the evil ghost of his mother, a dead actress. You will read about the Matanzas massacre, and about other historical events and battles that you'd never read about in a high school history book.

I have not read the third book in the series yet, but I have a theory about where Herculine is headed, and what her destiny is. I think she will find a way around "the blood", the mysterious way of death for witches that no witch has ever been able to escape. How will she do it? Pick up your copy of The Witchery, by James Reese, and find out for yourself.

I had so enjoyed The Book of Shadows, and this just didn't do it for me. I found the Kindle version to be really peculiarly transcribed, with a lot of mistakes, strange punctuation and words run together. And I found it to be troublesome to read: clearly densely researched, but written in such a way that the historical facts disturbed the telling of the tale and broke the flow of the story. It was the first book in a long time that I finished in order to finish it and not because it was giving me pleasure, and even the ending I found flat - like maybe he was doing the same thing!

I'm into chapter 6 and I cannot fathom reading another page. I agree with another reviewer. There is too much description in this book. I don't need to know every color, condition, and origin of every knicknack in every room. I don't need to follow the characters through the city, the countryside, to grandmother venus' house in 10 pages of boring detail. I'm on page 50 or so and I can some up it up in one sentence:

Herculine is a hermaphrodite witch, gets on a boat for America, spies on a beautiful slave women entertaining her master on a boat, leaves boat, sees slave woman again, meets a little girl Rosalie, has to stay in a hotel, meets Rosalies boring brother, Rosalie takes Herculine to freakish grandma venus.

Each night I read about 10 pages of this book before I fell asleep. Now that I have read the whole book I promptly threw it in the recycle bin. I don't want anyone to have to go through the experience again. The only good thing I can say about this book is that there is a high shock value in numerous odd scenes. On the other hand, I cannot stand how self centered Herculine is. It was downright disgusting to read how he left his "love" to care for herself (with risks of being inslaved again) for over a year while trolloping with a group of prostitutes.

I can go on and on about how I don't like this book but will refrain.

I'd bought Book of Shadows (which I also loved), and I checked this sequel out from my local library. I loved it so much that I just had to own it. As fascinating as the adventures of the sexually "ambidextrous" Herculine are, the seemless interface of historical fact with historical fiction just rivets me to the page. Being 1/8 Seminole, and seeing a distant ancestor come to life on the printed page, was a little extra treat. If you are sympathetic to the plight of witches, these books are for you. If you are fascinated by History, these books will make you smile. If you like both, you get a double treat.