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bhavani's review against another edition
2.0
CW: On-page racism; off-page child pornography, sexual abuse of minors, matricide & patricide
I recently learned about three questions that reviewers ought to ask themselves when confronting a text:
1) What is the work trying to achieve?
2) Does it achieve it?
3) Was it worth achieving?
I'm still trying to figure out the answers to these questions. But I regret to say I don't think I'll be continuing the series even though it has so many elements that I find fascinating.
I recently learned about three questions that reviewers ought to ask themselves when confronting a text:
1) What is the work trying to achieve?
2) Does it achieve it?
3) Was it worth achieving?
I'm still trying to figure out the answers to these questions. But I regret to say I don't think I'll be continuing the series even though it has so many elements that I find fascinating.
vikingwolf's review against another edition
2.0
I liked the vampire hunting part at the beginning of the book and I think I'd have liked this book if that had been what his cases were. I liked the Salem witches link. I liked our hero.
So why then did I abandon the book?
Well the second story about the South African agent hunting down the voodoo woman totally bored me and I wanted to skip these sections every time they appeared. The two cops were one dimensional with no personality and the plot died with every appearance by the Chuckle Brothers.
It also took a long time before the heroes tackled the haunted house and it was just very slow. This book had potential and maybe I'll read later books in a series like this if the vampires are back.
So why then did I abandon the book?
Well the second story about the South African agent hunting down the voodoo woman totally bored me and I wanted to skip these sections every time they appeared. The two cops were one dimensional with no personality and the plot died with every appearance by the Chuckle Brothers.
It also took a long time before the heroes tackled the haunted house and it was just very slow. This book had potential and maybe I'll read later books in a series like this if the vampires are back.
quillandkindle's review
2.0
Nothing spectacular that can be seen in Gustainis's Black Magic Woman. The writing is mediocre, the plot is pretty simple and the biggest drawback is the dull, lacklustre ending, so anti-climatic that it takes most of the fun away.
marialschez's review against another edition
3.0
http://lavozdeltiempoliteratura.blogspot.com.es/2012/09/resena-11-la-maldicion-de-la-bruja-negra.html
git_r_read's review against another edition
5.0
can't get over how MUCH I enjoyed reading this book! I had to set it aside for a bit as I'd forgotten I was to have read and reviewed a book, the thankfully fast paced DON'T CALL ME A CROOK - Bob Moore for Online Publicist. I whomped on that one and quickly got back to Quincey and Libby's dark adventure.
Quincey starts the story with his quest to eradicate a nest of vamps from a small town in Texas. He's smart and quick, vamps cleaned out in a concisely excellent manner. Then he gets a visit from Walter LaRue, a man whose house is being attacked by a supernatural being that is progressively getting more violent. Quincey calls upon his friend Libby, a white witch, to help him out. They arrive at the house to find that there is more to the story than meets the eye and both realize they are going to have to move fast or someone, if not all, in the house will die.
There are four different points of view throughout the book, mainly the story is told through Quincey and Libby. The thriller is pushed forward with a pair of serial killers, a pair of detectives, and the black witch all are circling.
I admire Quincey's presence of mind that gets rattled from time to time and the way he knows his life is preordained destiny and he is good with that. Libby is straight forward, gentle and smart. They make a great team.
This is a book where evil is truly awful and good is fighting the good fight against it. I can't wait to read the next in the series, EVIL WAYS. I can only hope that Justin Gustainis has many more stories and adventures for this team to journey.
Five fiendishly haunted beans.....
Quincey starts the story with his quest to eradicate a nest of vamps from a small town in Texas. He's smart and quick, vamps cleaned out in a concisely excellent manner. Then he gets a visit from Walter LaRue, a man whose house is being attacked by a supernatural being that is progressively getting more violent. Quincey calls upon his friend Libby, a white witch, to help him out. They arrive at the house to find that there is more to the story than meets the eye and both realize they are going to have to move fast or someone, if not all, in the house will die.
There are four different points of view throughout the book, mainly the story is told through Quincey and Libby. The thriller is pushed forward with a pair of serial killers, a pair of detectives, and the black witch all are circling.
I admire Quincey's presence of mind that gets rattled from time to time and the way he knows his life is preordained destiny and he is good with that. Libby is straight forward, gentle and smart. They make a great team.
This is a book where evil is truly awful and good is fighting the good fight against it. I can't wait to read the next in the series, EVIL WAYS. I can only hope that Justin Gustainis has many more stories and adventures for this team to journey.
Five fiendishly haunted beans.....
veronica87's review against another edition
3.0
I wouldn’t necessarily classify this book as an urban fantasy. It reads more like a supernatural thriller. I’m also not sure why it is billed as the Morris and Chastain investigations because we spend as much time with the other characters, including the villains, as we do with the supposedly central pair. The story is told in omniscient third person so we get the full picture of what is going on with all the players at any given time. Quincy Morris is something of a paranormal investigator who occasionally partners up with Libby Chastain, a white witch. What starts out as a seemingly simple case of ridding a home of a bad spirit quickly escalates into something far more sinister. The bad guys are truly bad and the crimes they commit are pretty horrendous. The victims are children so, fair warning. The various plot threads and multiple characters at first seem very disconnected but it all starts to come together around the half-way mark. Once I let go of my expectations that this was going to be a typical urban fantasy and that this was going to be just Morris’ and Chastain’s story, I was able to enjoy it a lot more…as the supernatural thriller it really is.
emmafromoz's review against another edition
5.0
A compelling read & one I thoroughly enjoyed. I was moved to read in the acknowledgements that this book was dedicated to JG's beloved late wife. So much of his plotting (here & in later books) is imbued with & motivated by grief & loss of family - to discover how deeply personal this theme is to JG was both saddening & enlightening.
m3l89's review
1.0
This is a difficult one for me to review. While I loved the links to Dracula, I found Black Magic Woman a chore to read. I didn't warm to any of the characters and wasn't bothered about the outcomes of the situations they found themselves in.
At numerous times throughout the book I felt the writing and dialogue were tongue in cheek and couldn't make my mind up whether this was a serious attempt at a paranormal novel, or a jokey attempt.
At numerous times throughout the book I felt the writing and dialogue were tongue in cheek and couldn't make my mind up whether this was a serious attempt at a paranormal novel, or a jokey attempt.
pollyno9's review against another edition
4.0
This review is for the series as a whole.
There are high point and low points for these books.
The high:
Good action writing. The action scenes in these books are paced just right. It doesn't move so fast that I feel like my reading can't keep up, but they don't drag on and on either. The characters do their things, and even though one is actively engaged in the fighting and one is not (speaking of the two main characters) you know that each is vital and what they're doing in presented in an interesting way.
The sexy parts hit the right tone. There are sexy parts in all these books, but they aren't graphic, and generally they do build the scenery well. If some of the sexy parts are gratuitous, and somewhat out of character they are, at least, brief
The pacing matches the timing. When things are heating up, the pacing gets a bit rushed, but the story feels like it moves along under its own steam, rather than being hurried along to get to the next interlude.
The low:
If you want a series that deals exclusively with demons and witches, this series is for you. Each book is a fight between good witches and bad witches, and the bad witches are super into murdering children and demonic sexytimes.
Can something be slightly sexist? Is that quantifiable? Because I'd say these books are slightly sexist. Women in these books are usually good at their tasks, confident and pretty powerful, yet it just feels off. Women are getting apologized to when someone swears, the heroines are all beautiful (the villainous women are a mixed bag), there is a sense of rescue happening in quite a few instances.
The word "podner" is used. Not even sure how this is correctly pronounced, my inner voice tripped over it every time. Not to mention, the two main characters are so witty that sometimes you could tell the author included some witticism just because he thought it was clever. Non sequiturs are pretty common in the dialogue, and none of the secondary characters bother to comment, which left me rolling me eyes in at least one occasion.
Over all, I give this series a low 3 stars. I'll keep reading them, and probably even binge reading them if I happen to have more than one on hand at any given time, but I won't go out of my way to share these with others.
There are high point and low points for these books.
The high:
Good action writing. The action scenes in these books are paced just right. It doesn't move so fast that I feel like my reading can't keep up, but they don't drag on and on either. The characters do their things, and even though one is actively engaged in the fighting and one is not (speaking of the two main characters) you know that each is vital and what they're doing in presented in an interesting way.
The sexy parts hit the right tone. There are sexy parts in all these books, but they aren't graphic, and generally they do build the scenery well. If some of the sexy parts are gratuitous, and somewhat out of character they are, at least, brief
The pacing matches the timing. When things are heating up, the pacing gets a bit rushed, but the story feels like it moves along under its own steam, rather than being hurried along to get to the next interlude.
The low:
If you want a series that deals exclusively with demons and witches, this series is for you. Each book is a fight between good witches and bad witches, and the bad witches are super into murdering children and demonic sexytimes.
Can something be slightly sexist? Is that quantifiable? Because I'd say these books are slightly sexist. Women in these books are usually good at their tasks, confident and pretty powerful, yet it just feels off. Women are getting apologized to when someone swears, the heroines are all beautiful (the villainous women are a mixed bag), there is a sense of rescue happening in quite a few instances.
The word "podner" is used. Not even sure how this is correctly pronounced, my inner voice tripped over it every time. Not to mention, the two main characters are so witty that sometimes you could tell the author included some witticism just because he thought it was clever. Non sequiturs are pretty common in the dialogue, and none of the secondary characters bother to comment, which left me rolling me eyes in at least one occasion.
Over all, I give this series a low 3 stars. I'll keep reading them, and probably even binge reading them if I happen to have more than one on hand at any given time, but I won't go out of my way to share these with others.