The Book of Shadows

By James Reese

Alone among the young girls taught by nuns at a convent school in nineteenth-century France, orphaned Herculine has neither wealth nor social connections. When she's accused of being a witch, the shy student is locked up with no hope of escape ... until her rescue by a real witch, the beautiful, mysterious Sebastiana. Swept away to the witch's manor, Herculine will enter a fantastic, erotic world to discover her true nature -- and her destiny -- in this breathtaking, darkly sensual first novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9780061739569

James Reese

James Reese is the author of The Witchery, The Book of Spirits, and The Book of Shadows. He lives in South Florida and Paris, France.

Reviews for The Book of Shadows

[phaedrab_2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'm amazed I read this all the way through. Horror is not my usual genre, but I was seduced by both the bargain bin and Caleb Carr's blurb. I found it to be one part page turner, one part very soft porn and one part sadistic porn masquerading as a description of historical practices of the Inquisition. I know about the Inquisition; I would say I probably know more about it than the average person. I don't need long, graphic descriptions of Inquisition torture in my fiction. If I want sadism, I'll go straight to the Marquis; his stuff is both more intriguing and more honest about why it is there. I guess that's why I don't do horror movies either. Creepy/scary is one thing; torture porn such as the Saw franchise is something else all together.That said, the book got off to a somewhat slow start, then got completely bogged down (for my taste, anyway) in torture porn flashbacks. About a third of the way in, it had a long series of first person flashbacks that were quite readable. The last third had horror elements that, while gory in themselves, seemed plot-purposeful rather than gratutious like the earlier "history lesson" had been.If you like this sort of thing, you'll probably like the book. For me, not to my taste.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like Rice's Interview with the Vampire, this is sensual and sexual and interweaves a subject of the horror genre--in this case witches--with well-crafted historical fiction. Set in the France of around 1830, this is mostly the first person narrative of Herculine--the very name was a hint of her nature given the famous French hermaphrodite Herculine Barbin. She is a man, a woman--and a witch. I found this novel a page turner--the details are lush and vivid without being flowery or overdone, making you feel transported to another age, and in parts so suspenseful it was hard not to skip ahead to find out what was going to happen. I was particularly impressed with how the author used the lore of witches, both of the traditional kind that has converse with demons, graveyards and curses and the neo-pagan kind that can "draw down the moon." The story, through telling the tale of Herculine's mentor, her "soror mystica," Sebastiana and her companions, the incubi Louis and succubi Madeleine, ranges from the "Burning Times" of the 1600s to the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution to the Bourbon Restoration. A Book of Shadows, we are told, is "a record of life's lessons" and this one makes for an unusual coming of age tale, sometimes deeply weird, but one I found engrossing.

[krista23 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Gothic and erotic story of Herculine who is just trying to find the answers to those burning questions of Who am I? and Where do I belong?

[luvdancr · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

i never actually finished this book. I couldn't bring myself to do it. After reading it periodically for 4 months i have given up. There is simply so much detail in this story. at 600 pages, it runs too long for me. Although for being his first novel it is startingly imaginative. I wish I had the time and wherewithall to finish this book!

[jewelryladypam · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I got about a third of the way through and couldn't finish it. This could've been a great book had it not been for the author's dreadful way of telling the story. Too wordy, too hard to follow; I was bored, I was confused and I finally gave up.

[frykitty · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I'm trying to remember why the hell I bought this awful, awful, faux-Victorian piece of sludge. Gack. I couldn't finish.