Speak Daggers To Her

So the theme for the week is witches. I've been taking a fabulous workshop titled Witchcraft for the Paranormal Author and run by Deborah Blake (www.deborahblakehps.com), and one of the first lessons gave us a bunch of different books with witch characters. As a result, I ended up with a bunch of witchy books on my hold list at the library.

The first one to come in was Speak Daggers To Her by Rosemary Edghill. It's a murder mystery published in '95. I thought the plot was just okay but the characterizations were very good, and the author's understanding of the occult/pagan/Wiccan community(ies) was incredibly nuanced. She got the politics right, or at least made a very convincing case for how people who call themselves witches operate in the real world. This is the first of three Bast mysteries (named after the main character), and I have one more from the library in the T.B.R. stack.

The other book I read this week that also had a witch as a main character was The Native Star by M.K. Hobson. This did not come off the workshop list, but is a book I picked up on our Portland/Powell's sojourn last month. It's set in a Steampunk alternative Wild West, and the main characters are a witch and a warlock. I thought the mystery was fairly compelling the plot moved along, but the romance was a little light for my tastes (Wow! They kissed! Twice!) and the whole thing was undercut by a final chapter where two of the minor characters sit down over tea and have a conversation that implies that the main characters are little cogs in a much bigger machine. Okay, I get that you want to set it up for a sequel, but don't disparage the satisfying conclusion you just reached. I guess if fate plops the sequel in my lap, I'll read it, but I don't know that I'll go out looking for it.