Halloween Magic (Signet Regency Romance) [Paperback]

Sandra Heath (Author)

Book Description

Series: Signet Regency Romance | Publication Date: September 1, 1996

Unable to believe her luck when the dazzlingly handsome Lord Nicholas falls in love with her, the enamored Verity Windsor finds the relationship challenged by Judith Villiers and her wanton temptations.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Released from her stone prison by a Halloween thunderstorm 200 years after her death, witch Meg Ashton returns to Wychavon to wreak vengeance on the last descendants of the men who sent her to the stake. Ancient magic and real evil are at work in this rather unusual Regency, which pits a beautiful, seductive Tudor against a naive, gentle heroine. By using a wealth of folklore and legend and an abundance of descriptive detail, Heath provides a nice sense of time and place. Her romance is darker and more sensual than some of her earlier Regencies with paranormal aspects (e.g., Lucy's Christmas Angel, Signet Regency, 1995). She lives in Gloucester, England.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Signet (September 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451188632
• ISBN-13: 978-0451188632
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,930,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Have you ever read a book and wished you could write one too? Have you ever followed someone else's characters and thought you would have them behave differently? Well, that's how I was. I read and read and read, especially historical fiction, but I secretly yearned to write a title of my own. Strangely, it took my three-year-old daughter's urgent admission to hospital with meningitis to finally get me going. She was so ill and I was so distracted, that after a while my father gave me a little portable typewriter 'to help take my mind off things'. By the time my daughter Sarah came out of hospital, well on the road to recovery, my first book was also well on the road.

I wrote and wrote and wrote, standing in the kitchen on one leg like a stork, with the typewriter on a work surface while my daughter played around my feet. My first ten books were medieval historicals set in England, and since then I have mostly written in the English Regency period - for which living in Britain is a definite advantage! I love romantic stories, and if I can weave history, traditions, myths, legends and sometimes Gothic elements into them, I'm happiest of all. These were the sorts of story I couldn't get enough of before I became a writer, and I'm glad to say my readers like them too.

Sandra Heath isn't my only pen name, for you'll also find me as Sandra Wilson, Jeannie Machin and Sarah Stanley. Some of these titles you'll recognize from before, but some you won't. Most of my medievals were written as Sandra Wilson, and as Sarah Stanley I've produced two new sensuous Regencies, STAR-CROSSED SUMMER and MIDWINTER MARRIAGE, which follow the same characters and should be read in the order of the titles. I hope to follow them with two more in the same series, but at the moment I have so much else to write that it may be a little while.

Sooo, over sixty-five books after my first ever title, I'm still wearing out keyboards, and loving every minute of it.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magic for Halloween, or anytime at all . . ., July 6, 2000

By 

kellytwo "kellytwo" (cleveland hts, ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Halloween Magic (Signet Regency Romance) (Paperback)

This isn't your mother's Regency romance, but that's okay, because you aren't your mother! But then again, given her creativity and her exceedingly inventive mind, anything is possible with Sandra Heath. For a while in the mid-90s, she ventured a bit away from the traditional Regency and into the paranormal and the sensual, and sometimes a combination of the two.

HALLOWEEN MAGIC may well be the best of her books of this type. Drawing on a wide variety of folk-lore and other research, this entertaining look at a mad, bad witch would have been difficult, if not impossible, for a non-British native.

Meg Ashton, accused of being a witch, was burned at the stake in 1618. Two hundred years later, she comes back to the area she had earlier inhabited, and sets out to wreak revenge on the descendants of those who were instrumental in her demise. Successful in her vendetta against the Villiers family, Meg next turns her attention towards Nicholas, ninth Lord Montacute.

Goodness will always win out against evil, and the goodness here is personified by Verity Windsor, orphaned niece of the village magistrate. Inadvertently, Verity manages to intrude on nearly every spell being cast by the witch against the hapless Nicholas. Consequently, the innocent Verity finds herself irresistibly drawn to Nicholas, just as he is to her.

HALLOWEEN MAGIC is a truly perfect--and VERY sensual Halloween treat. Whether by trick or by treat, be sure not to miss this one.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Halloween Tale strong in lore, October 2, 2004

By 

Deborah MacGillivray "Author," (US & UK) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Halloween Magic (Signet Regency Romance) (Paperback)

Sandra Heath so impressed me with her novel Lavender Blue, A Regency Gothic strong on pagan lore, that I rushed out and bought her backlist. And again, I am impressed. Halloween Magic is another strong tale of dark magick and things that go bump in the night. Once again, the lore surrounding May Day and Halloween are presented in a non-hysterical fashion, steep in lore and myths surrounding these pagan festivals.

On Halloween, there was a terrible thunderstorm that plagued the small hamlet of Wychavon. The remote Shropshire valley had to forgo their usual All Hallows Eve celebration, as the country folk, hid in their homes as they shook from the thunder. In strike of lightning, The Elderly Admiral Villiers is shocked to look out his front window and see a beautiful woman suddenly appear from nowhere. She was gorgeous and very naked. He had the servants bring her into his home, and word quickly spreads through the village that she's a victim of amnesia and cannot recall who she is or where she came from. He calls her Judith after his mother, and gossip runs rampant, as a short time later, the village learns he is to marry the woman 1/3 his age. The shock is fed fuel, when scarcely two months later, the man is found drowned under very mysterious circumstances. Since he had no heir, Judith inherits his estate. Only Judith, knew precisely who she is - or rather was. She was Meg Ashton, a powerful witch, burnt at the stake two hundred years ago. The clap of thunder freed her spirit where it had been slumbering in an ancient stone called The Lady. Now she is set on punishing the descendents of those responsible for her being burnt. First on that list was Admiral Villiers. Next is Nicholas Montacute, the lord of Wychavon.

On Beltaine - May Day Eve - she goes to cast a spell to bring Nicholas back from London, so she can plot his death. Only she dropped the seal she had stolen from his house. She had charged it with bringing Nicholas back and making him fall for her charms. Only when she dropped it, the seal ends up in Verity Windsor hands. Verity has slipped out to wash her face in the dew on Beltaine, and found the seal. By her possessing the seal, Judith's spell works - but instead of Judith being the object of Nicholas' affection - he returns and is suddenly obsessed with Verity.

Verity has long worship Nicholas from afar, but felt it was a hopeless love. But suddenly, the handsome Nicholas declare himself taken with her. Only, true love shall not run smooth in this case, as Judith is furious that Verity keeps thwarting her black magick.

It's a charming Regency Romance, with a strong feel for the period and the lore. Give the writer extra points for knowing a turnip is a pumpkin, and a pumpkin is a neep. Also, for the flawless Mutli-Point of View writing that shines, painting her story with the full rich textures of letting you know all the characters.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Halloween Romance, August 22, 2009

By 

J. C. Severus - See all my reviews

This review is from: Halloween Magic (Signet Regency Romance) (Paperback)

From the back cover:
Verity Windsor was startled beyond belief when the dazzlingly handsome, wealthy, and charming Lord Nicholas Montacute declared himself her smitten slave. What witchcraft was at work to make a man who could have any woman he desired want to have only her? And how could a country miss such as she resist the spell that made her senses swim when this lord and master of sophisticated seduction took her in his arms?

All her doubts about this man's hunger and her own melted in his first burning kiss...only to return with a vengeance when she found herself fighting for his heart against the ravishing Judith Villiers, who knew every trick of tempting a man. Verity could only hope and pray that this wanton widow's sensual sorcery could be bested by the mysterious magic of love...