The pacing was slow, dry, and not helped by the frequent, jarring sentence fragments. The protagonist and antagonist were set up as Completely Good and Completely Evil with no hope of any nuance or hook whatsoever. ( )

A curse, reincarnation, familiars, a battle between good and evil, Witches by Kathryn Meyer Griffith is loaded with many witch things that tease and titillate your paranormal and supernatural desires.

I have been watching Charmed (a TV series) reruns for a long time now, so it is easy to visualize all the going on, from familiars to scrying to all the powers needed for the battle coming Amanda’s way.

Amanda is a good witch and a good person, lonely since the death of her husband. She has her family and some friends in her isolated surroundings and she will need them. The selfless love she spreads and gives to others freely, asking for nothing in return makes me feel she deserves only the best.

The familiars are faithful companions and can be amusing at time. I couldn’t help but laugh at Tibby, a mouse familiar. I can see him throwing his little paws in the air in frustration.

Murders.

It will be Amanda and her familiar, Amadeus, against the diabolical cult that is killing the residents of Canaan. She is a bit naive, unwilling to believe the danger that stalks her and I want to be with her, fighting at her side, making things right for her.

The witch hunt puts a target on her back and it is worse than she thought. The battle between good and evil will take all she has to survive.

The sense of evil and foreboding of what is to come was present from the opening pages. The grisly murders, the impromptu storms, and the death and destruction run rampant in Canaan.

I didn’t see the direction Kathryn would take for this unusual witch’s tale and the world I would be in. Her vivid descriptions and detailed, complex characters make me love and hate them…but Amanda…

The terrible things Kathryn puts her through come alive on the pages. She is not afraid to make her characters suffer, sometimes killing them off, making me love her writing, because I have to stay on my toes and be ready for the surprises she will spring on me.

The writing is outstanding, but I am not surprised by Kathryn’s ability to bring this magical world to life, making me devour the words, unable to stop, wanting to know…

Kathryn Meyer Griffith takes WITCHES to a whole new level, keeping the suspense rising,the pacing constant. I am anxious, curious, suurprised, amazed, fearful, terrified as read of Amanda and those around her as demons and black magic rise and good magic fights back.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Witches by Kathryn Meyer Griffith. ( )

Author: Kathryn Meyer Griffith
Published By: Damination Books
Age Recommend: Adult
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Raven Rating: 5

Review:

"Witches" by Kathryn Meyer Griffith was quite some new read for me and I enjoyed this paranormal read. Be ready for some horror, mystery and a little bit of romance to see how Ms. Griffith well cover the storytelling in "Witches."

There was two witches...a good witch who was Amanda Givens..white witch in that used her powers for only good living in a cabin in the wood of Canaan, Connecticut with her cat, Amadeus. However, life for her would be turned ugly in that she was wrongly blamed for murders that had been committed by a Satanic Cult... 'drawned back in time by this ghost of Rachel Coxe, who was a dark witch who had drowned for being involved in black magic during the 17th century.' All of this end up being a true good vs. evil....light versus dark. The difference between good witches and bad witches...and then enters Karma which will be in the end ...then the concept of the Guardian is something now that comes. Now, just what am I talking about... trying not to spill any of this...... so, this will be the time that I say you must pick up "Witches" and see just what it is all about. This will be a very interesting read for you. Be ready for some fun stuff like magic.. ... Amanda had a cat... her sister (Jesse) had a mouse...which was funny with its cowardly lion impression and squeaky voices ...oh well... pick up the read!



I found this a excellent book which offers witchcraft with love, lot and lots of adventure. If you are in for a good paranormal magic with many weird twist with some elements of romance and even some family blending......I would recommend "Witches" as a good read to you. ( )

All readers know about the reading slump, that damnable period of time when you just can’t settle into a book. Nothing you pick up can hold your attention and you begin to wonder if you have lost your reading mojo. I got my mojo back when I picked up Kathryn Meyer Griffith’s Witches.
When I peruse the paranormal section of my favorite used bookstore, I don’t normally gravitate toward books that focus on witches and witchcraft. To be completely honestI didn’t find this book, it found me and I am rather glad that it did. The premise of the novel is quite simple: Amanda is a white witch who finds herself pulled into a nefarious plot constructed by none other than Satan himself. Amanda’s vulnerability is the element that will draw you into the book. Amanda is introduced to us as a woman who is all but crippled by the grief she feels following the death of her beloved husband, Jake. At the same time we find out that Amanda is far from weak and is in fact one of the world’s most powerful white witches.
It takes Griffith a bit too long to pull Amanda, and by extension the reader out of the mourning period and into the thick of the plot. As Amanda is dealing with her grief, the town of Canaan, Connecticut where she lives is experiencing a rash of violent, cult-like killings. Many in the town are suspicious of Amanda and suspect she is behind the killings or at the very least is involved in them. By the time Amanda gets her head on straight it’s too late – the cult publically implicates Amanda in an effort to draw her out. Here’s the rub: the cult not only draws Amanda out but traps her in Canaan, Connecticut at the end of the seventeenth century. Oh yes, dear reader, that would be the right time and the right place for the witch trials.
It is at this point that Griffith takes a very bold and risky step; she begins to move the novel back and forth through time with Amanda in the late seventeenth century and her sister, Rebecca in the twenty-first century working to bring her sister home. This type of “time travel” works nicely with both the plot and the geography and allows Griffith to further develop Amanda and her sister as strong central characters. This type of writing could have easily gone horribly wrong for Griffith but it did not. She manages to not only move between the two time periods but to connect them as well!
The bottom line? I have three dislikes: 1) the afore mentioned sluggish nature of the first part of the novel and 2) the rather underdeveloped qualities of the minor characters, in particular, Amanda and Rebecca’s familiars Amadeus and Tibby. Griffith actually gives these two characters their own “human” voices which in turn creates a great potential for further development(s) within the plot. Unfortunately, that never happened. Finally, 3) the unanswered questions regarding the Guardians and who they really are.
Overall I did enjoy this book and the plot in particular as it appealed to my love of historical fiction without actually being historical fiction. I also liked the author’s voice – it is an older voice that imbued both Amanda and Rebecca with mature voices of their own. That is, Amanda and Rebecca are women who have lived, loved, and lost and came out stronger for it on the other side. This is a quality that I very much appreciated. I also have a feeling, and it’s only a sneaking suspicion really, that the things I disliked about the novel are not oversights on the author’s part but things that are going to be dealt with in a later novel. A girl can hope, right? ( )