Customer Reviews

Season of the Witch

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In "Season of the Witch", Natasha Mostert writes a satisfying intellectual novel that entertains the reader on multi-levels. Combining a knowledge of computer technology, the occult and psychology, she weaves a story that teases the "seeker" in all of us while transforming a could-have-been mundane tale of two erotic witches and their boy-toys into an interesting peek at the age-old quest for ultimate gnosis.

Mostert's characters are ripe with the usual heroic attributes: good looks, charisma, and extraordinary sensory skills. Accomplished and hubristic, Gabriel, the lead player, makes his living as an information thief. Prowling the streets of London like a modern day Artful Dodger, he pick-pockets bits and bytes of cyberspace with wireless devices and sells them off to the highest corporate bidders. As a one-time "remote viewer" (a natural talent that enables one to "see" with the mind of another) he is contacted by Frankie, his former lover, to "slam a ride" into the mind of Robbie, her missing stepson, to discover his whereabouts. Minnaloushe and Morrighan Monk, two sisters that Gabriel senses during his ride, are not only beautiful and brilliant; they have developed an intricate memory palace (shades of Hannibal Lector) where they can hone their arcane skills as solar witches. Together, the three forge a fascinating trio; all are willing to give their all to maximize their innate skills while feeding their private desires.

From the start, Gabriel knows that one of the beautiful Monks has done away with Frankie's stepson. However, he finds that he is in love with the unknown writer of a highly imaginative digital diary that he is able to clandestinely glimpse at using his skills as a computer hacker. As with all heroes, Gabriel's focus shifts from his completing his mission to his fulfilling his personal wishes. And as most stories go, his weakness causes great inimitable pain. Like any coming of age journey, a trial by fire ensues, eventually tempering Gabriel's arrogance and allowing him to pursue the ultimate truth.

Although the plotline moves along at just the right pace and the conclusion is both compelling and satisfying, I found the beauty of this novel to lie in the information that Mostert so lovingly introduces to the reader. The complicated ideas of gnosis, alchemy and memory palaces tantalize; I, for one, will look into Mostert's recommendation to read "The Art of Memory" by Yates and "The Zelator" by Mark Hedsel. In addition, her comments regarding modern man's inability to internalize knowledge because of the accessibility of data via the Internet and other formats fascinate. Understanding that without a trained memory with "muscle" the truly inspired creative ideas that lead to a greater understanding of the universe will never conceptualize (one cannot link concepts together if they have been forgotten and not residing in memory), Mostert predicts a dire destiny for mankind in terms of its overall progression.

Bottom line? In terms of plot, I have subtracted one star for Mostert's rather obvious red herring device to steer the reader away from uncovering the identity of the actual murderess. Otherwise, I found this modern tale of witchcraft and seeking stimulating. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes something reminiscent of Elizabeth Hand's cult classic, "Waking the Moon." The melding of the ancient mysteries with the magic of today's technology entertains well, providing for a ride that slams as well as jams.

Diana Faillace Von Behren.

London is full of secrets. Gabriel Blackstone should know. He's a professional information thief. He and his partner can hack almost any system, if the price is right. Life is good, until an old flame shows up needing his help.

His ex-girlfriend, now married to a wealthy businessman, wants Gabriel to use a special ability--one he has tried to forget--to find her stepson. The search leads to a pair of sisters who immediately enchant him. Obsessed with the power of memory and alchemy, they draw him into a magical world where he is tempted to forget the nature of his job.

A mysterious journal, suspicious deaths, and growing fascination with the sisters' world brings Gabriel to places he never thought to revisit. Love and danger mingle to create a situation he will be lucky to survive.

This is a unique adventure that will take readers on a mind-trip of power, lust, greed, and magic. The story begins with a character involved in high-tech espionage and takes the reader on a paranormal ride.

The characters are beautifully illustrated, each with distinctive qualities. Pacing gets a bit slow at times, especially as Gabriel gets submerged in the sisters' arts. Aside from the pacing, the plot is well constructed and contains a couple decent twists. The settings range from urban London to the magical house and garden that belong to the sisters, and where Gabriel spends a great deal of time.

I've not read many books like this, and I recommend it to readers who would like a change of pace.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer

05/10/2007

Enter a world of beauty and darkness... I was intrigued by the beautiful cover image and the enigmatic tag line of Natasha Mostert's novel, Season of the Witch, when it arrived in my mailbox for review. That is, until I turned the book over. It wasn't the completion of the tag line: Two sisters. A mysterious house. And a man searching for the truth. That sounded positively gothic, a niche of fiction I thoroughly enjoy. It was quotes like, "A mesmerizing blend of alchemy and sexuality. Prepare to be seduced." and phrases like "fraught with eroticism" and "dangerous sex" that brought forth mental images of a witchy ménage a trios that put me off the idea of diving right into this book. Strange, inner jacket comparisons with The Matrix, Interview with a Vampire, and The Historian did not evoke much confidence that this would be a book that I would ultimately enjoy despite liking all those things.

Having just spent the last several hours hanging on every word of the last 200 pages of Season of the Witch, I have never been more happy to say, "Boy, was I ever wrong!" The old adage of "don't judge a book by its cover", or more accurately, "its cover blurbs", held very true for my experience with Natasha Mostert's gripping novel.

From the book jacket:

Gabriel Blackstone is a hacker, information thief, and skilled "remote viewer"-he makes an excellent living stealing other people's secrets. When a former lover asks him to look into the disappearance of her stepson, Gabriel's investigations lead him to Monk House, a rambing Victorian home where time seems to stand still. Gabriel becomes increasingly bewitched by the house, and by its owners...

Contrary to what the jacket blurbs would lead one to believe, this is not some sort of occultish erotic thriller. Oh it is a thriller all right, make no mistake, but the melodramatic overtones of "eroticism" and "sexuality" belie the fact that this is a straight up gothic thriller, set in modern times. Having had the experience I have just had with Season of the Witch, I can confirm that in one way the jacket blurbs got it right: "Prepare to be seduced" is a perfectly accurate warning, though possibly not in the way the sentiment was intended.

It is obvious from my opening quotes that I was trepidatious going into this book. It didn't take long before I came to realize that what I had in my hands was much better than any initial expectations. I began reading in small doses, fitting in a few pages here and there as I had time over the weekend. Those few pages turned into larger doses and soon I was just that, seduced. Mostert's writing, the way she pulls the reader in as Gabriel is slowly lured into the lives of the two mysterious M women, is artful in its seduction. And once you are woven into her web of words, there is no getting out. I hit a point early this evening, right around the halfway point of the novel, in which I realized that any activity I had planned for the night was due to be rescheduled. I was going to spend the remainder of my night with Gabriel.

Season of the Witch is a story about memory, it is a story filled with interesting symbolism. It is a story of romance and redemption, it is a tale of magic. The story builds up the tension so slowly, so deftly, that before you know it you find yourself in passages of the book that give you the same kind of nervous anxiety that you get when watching a suspense film, where the killer is sneaking up on the unsuspecting victim. You want to scream, "Look out behind you!" but instead you tear through the pages with a racing heart and hope for the best.

I was utterly captivated by this book. Natasha Mostert manages to lend a truly timeless feel to the scenes in Monk House that make you feel as if part of what you are reading is classic gothic fiction. Added to that is a great deal of historical reference to the practice of alchemy and to a number of real life practitioners that give the novel more depth than a standard thriller. I was so intrigued by the mention of one individual that I had to put the book down to visit the great info-dump of cyberspace, Wikipedia, to read more about said individual before I could continue with the story. Scattered throughout the story are diary entries by one of the mysterious M women that bestow an air of secrecy and apprehension. To top it all off Mostert writes intriguing characters that feel three dimensional.

It doesn't happen often enough that I get so engrossed in a book that I have to stay up until the wee hours to finish it. Season of the Witch just happened to inspire a literary late night.

There is so much more to be said about this book, but perhaps the best thing I can say is this: Go out and buy it now. Allow it to slowly but surely tantalize you with its marvelous language and thrilling story. Forget any preconceptions the cover blurbs or inset jacket description may conjure up in your mind. It is not that these descriptions lack accuracy, it is that this book is so much more than that. Enter a world of beauty and darkness... it is well worth the price of admission.

As a fussy gourmand of mystery writing, I heartily recommend this mysterious and spicy offering. Not only does Mostert know how to create create multi-dimensional characters, but she also knows how to weave them into a compelling tale and teach us something about arcane practices to boot. I'm delighted she enhanced my summer with such a creative read.

Gabriel Blackstone is an information thief - a hacker, in simpler terms - with an interesting past. When an ex-girlfriend appears out of the blue and asks him to use his specific skills as both a hacker and a remote viewer (clairvoyant) to locate her wealthy husband's missing son, Gabriel finds himself drawn into a complex web of sensuality and the occult in the form of two fascinating sisters, Morrighan and Minnaloushe Monk, with whom the missing man was last seen. Raven-haired, lean, athletic Morrighan and the soft, supple, flame-haired Minnaloushe are descendants of John Dee, the 16th century occultist so valued by Queen Elizabeth I, and Gabriel is drawn into their lush and fantastical world so tightly that he is almost imprisoned by it, all the while knowing that one or both of them is extremely dangerous.

Part sci-fi, part goth, part occult, part mystery, I enjoyed this novel so much that I read it almost straight through - a very rare thing for me. I literally could not put it down. That's not to say that it's the perfect book or that everyone will be so enchanted by it, but for me it was the most entertaining and satisfying book I've read in many months. The characters were fantastic. I had a perfect mind's-eye visual of Gabriel, the women, and even secondary characters like Gabriel's hacker partner. Gabe is flawed but extremely likable, and the women are truly magical.

I had never heard of the author before, but will be looking for other work from her now!

Natasha Mostert's Season of the Witch is one of the best books I've read in quite a while. I obsessively turned the pages fearful of what might come next but desperately needing to know. I was almost as obsessed as Gabriel Blackstone in his hunger to taste again the cosmic illumination he felt, only once, in a trip into the memory palace, a most dangerous and fascinating place...

Now, I am not much of a pleasure reader, but when I saw the review for this book in Cosmopolitan magazine, it intrigued me. I've always been one for the supernatural - witchery in particular - but this book went beyond my every expectation. It has everything - magic, suspense, love, sex...... Ms. Mostert is a fantastic writer. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to expand their knowledge on what magic can be and enjoy the ride. Oh, but don't plan on having it to read forever, it's hard to put down! I read it in only 3 days (about 395 pgs. hardcover), and I work 40 hours a week. IT'S THAT GOOD! Can't wait to read The Midnight Side~

I was completely prepared to read this novel quickly and toss off a summary-laden review. I don't read a lot of "goth SF," as Publishers Weekly called SEASON OF THE WITCH, and I thought the lush book jacket looked a bit romance-y fancy.

Mea maxima culpa. I judged a book by its cover, and I was wrong. Once begun, I was enthralled and only wish I had been able to read it all in one sitting instead of having to interrupt its progress with mundane things like work and meals.

Natasha Mostert has done something fine and rare: she has created an erotically-charged atmosphere that has little of the salacious about it. Gabriel Blackstone is a professional information thief and former member of Eyestorm, a government-sanctioned research study involving Blackstone and his fellow "RVs" ("remote viewers" --- in ordinary fictional parlance, mindreaders and telepaths). He is hired by his former lover's husband, William Whittington, to investigate a son's disappearance, and he becomes entwined in the lives of sisters Minnaloushe and Morrighan Monk.

The Sisters Monk --- one curvaceous and titian, the other muscular and raven-haired --- could quickly become stock figures of clichéd fun. Mostert exerts a delicate control over detail, never allowing her "camera" to linger too long on one sister or the other. Added to their beauty is their mystery: the sisters seem to be witches, and the arrogant Blackstone believes he can crack their code before they crack him.

Here's where Mostert shines. A former academic and journalist with degrees in linguistics and lexicography, she takes an ancient idea (I won't spoil it!) and uses it to create a modern dilemma. If information is power, then the person who holds the key to that information holds the most power. Mostert wisely grounds her intellectual facts with real-life details. The Monks might be alchemists, but they are also sensualists. Their Victorian pile of a home is filled with roses in all states of bloom, books, papers, jars, bottles and many different colors and scents. As Gabriel becomes more and more (forgive me) bewitched by the women, he unlocks a diary written by one that reveals the author has fallen in love with him. But since she refers to everyone only by first initial, he has no idea which sister it is.

Meanwhile, the reader becomes increasingly aware that Gabriel's arrogance is not merely a trope to call attention to his Leading Man status --- it actually is his tragic flaw. As his old love Frankie watches her sick husband decline, Gabriel must decide if Robbie Whittington was murdered and, again, by which sister. The twists and turns continue until the very last chapter, with Mostert using her delicate touch to keep the pace tight yet languorous. I didn't want it to end.

--- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick

As the title of my review suggests, the concept/topic was fascinating. Several time while reading the novel, I stopped to check Wikipedia to learn more about alchemy and the like. But far too many parts of the story were implausible for it to hang together. And I'm not referring to the remote viewing and mind attacks. It's more mundane things like when did Gabriel ever work? Didn't he have any other friends or even a life outside of Isidore and the sisters? I could go on but don't want to spoil the story for other readers. The point is, I agree with the other reviewer who suggested that there was simply too much going on in this tale. At the end, I was quite disappointed. All this build up and then, rather than having an explosive ending, the story just fizzled out.

Slow, purposeless beginning, intriguing middle, disappointing ending. It just seems like the author just didn't have enough to make a novel-length story and added a bunch of filler. We get to know Gabriel quite a bit, but nothing of depth, and it only hints at his "dark" past. Also, once you read it all the way through, it really doesn't matter how Gabriel knows Frankie, the woman who brings the plot to him, or the nature of their previous relationship. All we really needed to know was that a young man has died mysteriously and his step-mother thinks the two weird women (not quite old enough to be cougars) killed him...I think that's written on the back of the book.

The sisters themselves are actually pretty fascinating, I thought. They differ from each other, but this cat-and-mouse they have with Gabriel makes for an addictive read. Who will seduce who first? And not just physical seduction, but that into alchemy, the art of memory, and some of the oldest aspects of the occult. Most of the diary entries capture one's interest, too. Someone in another review mentioned things like Gabriel not having time to work bothered them, but I saw that as evidence as to how far gone he was and how enticing the sisters and their...hobbies, for lack of a better word...are.

But then the story presents a twist of sorts, and it's kind of predictable. I can't reveal too much, but once this twist is revealed, the book just meanders, and yet, it seems rushed. There are some deaths, some dangerous situations, and a really, really weird resolution that doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the book as far as tone goes.

What makes the book memorable and worth a read is the exposition of the art of memory and believe it or not, the book's website is actually a lot more interesting.