fuonlyknew

This is a Tag Team Event hosted by myself and Sherry.

 It’s always a pleasure to share more books by Kathryn Meyer Griffith. I’ve read many of her books and plan to read everything she writes.

For today, I’m sharing my review of Witches.

After reading my review, head on over to Sherry’s blog at fundinmental for more and check out her review.

And this is an extra special event. We have two more bloggers joining us, sharing their reviews.

Check out Barb’s review at her blog Booker T’s Farm.

and Stormi’s review at Books, Movies, Reviews, Oh My!

All four blogs have exclusive giveaways, so be sure to visit all of them.

 Four chances to win!

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Witches

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Genre: Horror / Paranormal / Fantasy

My Review

Nothing like some witches to keep me reading into the wee hours. I should add that I’ve read many of Kathryn’s books and that always happens.

The age old battle of good vs. evil is portrayed by white magic and black magic.

Some things never change. Even for witches in present times. Amanda is still grieving over the loss of her beloved and just wants to get through each day. Living in a small town, her unusual ways raise suspicion and she’s the likely culprit for the town folks when the murders begin.

It’s Salem all over again as the town turns on Amanda, calling her a witch, shunning her, and casting the first stone.

As Amanda begins her own investigation, she stumbles into a dark and deadly plot involving dark magic and demons. Now, she’s desperate to reveal the truth before she’s outed by a posse and hung until dead.

A fun thing was the talking familiars. They came in all shapes and sizes and had very vocal opinions. It was also fun to see witches trying to hide what they were from the modern world. They all had different levels of power and couldn’t just twitch their noses and appear somewhere. Even witches had to use cell phones and airplanes.

I thought it worked really well for the story when the author took her story back in time to the witch trials. The contrasts and similarities of life as a witch was intriguing and kept the story moving quickly.

I thought I knew how this would end and worried that it wouldn’t work. That it would be awkward and rushed. Not so. I give kudos to Kathryn for surprising me and pulling it off.

  5  Stars

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Synopsis

There are witches in the world…some are good and some of them are downright evil.
Amanda Givens is careful how she uses her benevolent powers. She doesn’t want the people of Canaan, Connecticut to know they have a witch among them…even a good white witch. For years, she’s lived quietly in a remote cabin with Amadeus, her quirky feline familiar. At first with her husband, Jake, the love of her life, until a car accident; but now alone after his death. But when she’s wrongly blamed for a rash of ritualistic murders committed by a satanic cult, she knows she can no longer hide. She’s the one the cult is after and she is the only one who can stop them and prove her innocence. Yet as punishment for fighting and destroying the cult, she’s drawn back in time by the ghost of the dark witch, Rachel Coxe, who was drowned for practicing black magic in the 17th century. Now, as Amanda tries to rehabilitate Rachel’s reputation in an effort to save lives, as well as her own, and falls in love all over again with Joshua, her reincarnated dead husband from the future, she has to rely on a sister’s love and magical knowledge, and a powerful sect of witches named the Guardians, to help her get home safely.

Purchase on Amazon

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Why I wrote Witches

By Kathryn Meyer Griffith

 

In 1991 I’d already been writing for about twenty years, on and off (though there was a long gap where I didn’t write because of a divorce, the finding of a full time job to support myself and my son, and a remarriage…life) when I contracted my fourth novel, my first of four to Zebra paperbacks, a romantic horror called Vampire Blood, about a family of vampires who run a movie theater in a small town. I’d already had a fifth novel, The Last Vampire, completed and in with them when they asked me for another novel.

Got anything about witches, they asked. Witches are hot right now. Hmmm.

For many years I’d played around with an idea about a present day white witch who finds a diary of a long dead witch–either good or bad, I hadn’t decided–in her old house’s attic, or basement, or under a floorboard. The story would have been about the good witch reliving the other dead witch’s life through the diary. In my head I’d always called that possible book Rachel’s Diary.

So in 1991 or 1992 I began the witch book and it quickly metamorphosed into a story of a present day good witch, Amanda Givens, who’s yanked into a perilous seventeenth century past by an evil witch, Rachel Coxe, to take her place…and possibly, unless Amanda can change the evil witch’s history, die a horrible death as an accused witch. I had the idea then to actually send Amanda into the past to live (for a while) the other witch’s life. Of course, being a good witch, Amanda, changes the other witch’s unsavory reputation but still ends up in a prison waiting to die for Rachel’s earlier crimes. The story, simply put, would be how Amanda overcomes her trials and tribulations, finds her lost eternal love again in the past, and finds a way to return to the present alive. In the process, learning some important life lessons about accepting what life has dealt her and the value of sisters, friendships and the love of those around her. Or, in other words, a story of good versus evil and, in the end, good wins and is rewarded. I also threw in a few touches of humor in the form of three precocious witches’ familiars…a mind-reading and speaking ancient cat called Amadeus, a mouse, Tituba, and a tiny bat, Gibbiewackett…all with feisty personalities and quirks of their own.

I was excited about the book as I was writing it and when it was done, pleased with it, but had no idea that over the years it’d become one of the jewels of my writing career and a book my fans would love as much as they did. I loved the cat face cover Zebra did for it in 1993 (a rare occurrence as I’d learned the hard way that covers weren’t always what I’d envisioned and in the early days I had no choice but to accept whatever the publisher’s gave me…and some weren’t so hot, let me tell you!); but I love Dawne Dominique’s new 2015 cover just as much with the witch and her cat.

Witches originally came out in 1993 and did well. I noticed soon after as I went on to publish other books I continued to get admiration for it and requests for a sequel (though I haven’t been able to do another one so far…but maybe in the future). Readers loved the three sisters, Amadeus and Amanda, Gibbiewackett and Tituba. In those days I was too busy working full time as a graphic artist, living my life and writing new books to notice. It went into a second printing in 2000 and after that, sadly, went out of print until 2010. But my fans never forgot it. I’d find comments on it and discussions on the Internet…even customer reviews raving about it years and years later. I tried talking Zebra into reissuing it but after Zebra and I parted ways in 1994 there was no talking them into it.

Then in 2010 when Damnation Books contracted my 13^th and 14^th novels, the publisher asked about all (there was 7 at the time) my out-of-print Zebra and Leisure paperback backlist novels and if I’d like to have them reissued as new paperbacks and, for the first time ever, in e-books. Sure, that’d be great! I told them. And, as they say, the rest is history. Between June 2010 and July 2012 all 7 of them were updated, rewritten and came out again. Of course, that meant a heck of a lot of rewriting. A lot of work. Those early novels went back thirty-two years and were first written in the days of snail mail and on an electric typewriter before the Internet, e-mails and Windows Track Changes (for editing). Oh, boy, did they need revising. As of today I can happily say all my fourteen older novels have been totally rewritten, even my very first published romantic horror novel, Evil Stalks the Night (originally a 1984 Leisure Books paperback). Then, later, between 2012 and 2015 I finally (after much fighting with my old publishers) got all my rights back to all my old novels and self-published ALL my 23 novels myself in eBooks, paperbacks and Audible audio books. I will never go back to publishers again because I’m finally making a living with my books–and it’s great to have complete control for the first time in 45 years of writing.

I’ve often been asked what I think of e-books and I have to say it feels strange, all these years later, to be so into them. I think it’s fantastic to be able to put hundreds of books on one little lightweight hand-held contraption and sell them as inexpensively as we do. I started publishing e-books four years ago and have seen such great changes in even that short a time. With a chuckle I recall a writer’s convention I attended in 1990–yes, that far back–and the main topic back then was…OMG the electronic books are coming! They’re going to make us authors obsolete! Print books are going to die a terrible lonely death…etc., etc. Lack and alas, what are we going to do? Ha, ha. It’s ironic that 26 years later I’m in love with e-books and self-publishing. It is the present and the future. Though I think there’ll always be room for print books as well as electronic ones as many people still like to feel a real book in their hands.

So Witches…I rereleased it again in 2015 with a brand new cover and I’m thrilled. The cover is still of Amadeus, the magical cat, but now Amanda, the white witch, is also on it. As always my cover artist, Dawne Dominique, did an amazing job. I’m proud of the book, it has held up pretty well, I think. I hope it finds many more readers and fans.

So that’s the story of Witches…the little book that wouldn’t die.

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To enter, please leave your email address so I can contact you if you win and answer this question:

“If you were a witch, what animal would you choose for a familiar?”

Giveaway ends November 8th.

This is a Tag Team Event hosted by myself and Sherry at fundinmental.

Now hop on over and check out Sherry’s review, and enter for another chance to win  HERE.

Check out Barb’s review at Booker T’s Farm and enter her giveaway HERE.

And check out Stormi’s review at Books, Movies, Reviews, Oh My! and enter her giveaway HERE

Each blog has their own individual giveaway for 4 chances to win!

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Other books I’ve read by the author.

Click on the covers for my reviews.

Full length novels.

     

     

Short stories.

 

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