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Book Review: Spellcraft for Hedge Witches by Rae Beth

By Amazon, Books & Authors, Paganism, ReviewsNo Comments
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 Spellcraft for Hedge Witches is a remarkable book about natural magic, spell craft and paganism by Rae Beth.

It is aimed at Hedge Witches (solitary practitioners) of all levels who are in need of healing for themselves or others.

Beth’s part-conversational and part-instructional writing style is engaging and informative.

Spellcraft for Hedge Witches covers all things natural magic including:

  • The basics: tools, visualisation, magic as energy, how to raise – intent – release energy and the importance of having a strong emotional resonance when spell casting.
  • Throughout brief mentions of the history of the Craft.
  • Magical Correspondence (along with why they’re important).
  • More advanced ways of working (nicely done as the book progresses so does the spell craft).
  • How to communicate and work with: the Fae, elemental spirits and the God/Goddess.

Here’s a list of spells in the book:
1. Spell to Heal Anything.
2. Chant for Power.
3. Spell to Banish Abuse from a Relationship.
4. Spell to Banish Humiliation.
5. Spell to Counter an Ill Wish.
6. Spell to Gain Psychic Protection.
7. Spell for Transforming Destructive Feelings.
8. Spell to Heal Psychological Trauma.
9. Spell for Justice.
10. Spell to Consecrate Your Life to a Chosen Purpose.
11. Spell to Gain the Right Home.

Dotted throughout Spellcraft for Hedge Witches are superb illustrations and purely on a visual front, these would have been even better if they had been in colour.

I’ve been pagan for well over a decade and still learned many things from Spellcraft for Hedge Witches. Beth also reminded more of many more things that I already knew, but had forgotten about. I found the ideas in this book inspiring.

Throughout Spellcraft for Hedge Witches Beth encourages the reader to be creative when spell casting and do what works for them. Beth truly is a wise-woman and this book is bursting with her wisdom.

I would highly recommend Spellcraft for Hedge Witches to any Witch, pagan or other follower of an earth-based religion. I bought it from The Goddess and the Green Man shop on a recent trip Glastonbury (read about it and see photos by clicking this link). It is available to buy on Amazon.

Review soon,

Antony



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Tuesday 15 August 2017

Book Review: Carrie by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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 Carrie was Stephen King’s first jaunt into novel writing, originally published in 1974.

Carrie is a brilliant thriller, featuring an essentially damaged teenage girl with telekinetic (the ability to move objects with the mind) abilities.

Carrie White is the outsider at school. She’s always the butt of the joke.

Carrie’s home life isn’t much better with her Christian Fundamentalist mother. Her mother is physically and emotionally abusive, she thinks practically everything is sin. She regularly locks Carrie in a closet, the closet is designed to terrify and torment with effigies of sinners. To encourage Carrie to recognise her many sins and repent.

One day things change for Carrie. She is sixteen, in the communal showers at school after Physical Education, when she begins to bleed. She stands there, thinking that she must be dying.

Nobody has ever told her about menstruation. Unfortunately the other girls are less than sympathetic, in fact they are the polar opposite. They are cruel. They taunt her. They throw sanitary towels and tampons at her, telling her to plug it up. This traumatic event during puberty triggers something within Carrie and she starts to slowly realise that she can move and manipulate objects with her mind.

But what will she do with the power? Then popular boy Tommy Ross invites Carrie to The Spring Ball. What somebody intends as a kindness to Carrie leads to devastating consequences.

In Carrie the description is good, but some of it has become dated over time – including references to things. This is something that King recognises in the introduction to the story. However the reader can still mostly imagine what’s happening.

The story is told from various perspectives and using various formats (including quotes from imaginary books published about The White incident, interview Q&A from The White Commission, articles from News Papers, AP tickers and direct first person accounts). This variety in formatting made a refreshing change, although it did give some of the plot away at times. However it did add an retrospective analysis to events.

Carrie was a character that the reader quickly develops empathy for. All the other characters were strong and a few words of dialogue or internal thinking was all that was needed for them to come to life.

The plot was captivating and the pacing moved along at an appropriate speed. As Carrie was King’s first book, it is much shorter than some of his other books. This shortness actually made the book more enjoyable than some of King’s tomb-sized books.

Carrie is available to buy on Amazon and at all good book shops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Friday 11 August 2017

Book Review: How To Stop Time by Matt Haig

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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 How To Stop Time by Matt Haig is most likely the best book published in 2017.

In How To Stop Time Tom Hazard has a condition called anageria, a condition that slows down the ageing process. He’s lived for over four hundred years and yet looks about forty.

Tom’s condition is kept a secret from the world because he and people like him come to harm when other people find out about it. Tom is protected by an organisation whom help keep knowledge of the condition a secret and whom help him and others like him to stay safe.

Here’s how it works: Every eight years he gets to choose a new life doing whatever he wants, wherever he wants and gets to live it for eight years. In exchange at the end of every eight years he must complete a task, set by the organisations manipulative leader Hendrich.

As well as surviving, Tom is also looking for Marion, his daughter, from hundreds of years before who has the same condition as him. Hendrich is helping with this.

Tom’s character is intriguing, his naivety despite living for over four hundred years is endearing and his past and present are fascinating. The reader is pulled in from the very first word. In How To Stop Time not a single word is wasted or unnecessary, which is a credit to the editing. The reader will whiz through the short chapters eager for more.

The description ignites the reader’s imagination and takes them to the right place and time throughout.

The plot seamlessly transitions from the present to Tom’s memories of the past and back again. Tom is a skilled storyteller, which comes as no surprise when the reader reminds himself/herself that he was written by the brilliant Haig.

The risk with this sort of book is that the pacing is slow because some of it is set in the past. However Haig’s pacing was flawless throughout, never being to slow or to fast.

Tom tells the story in first person perspective which is perfect for this sort of novel, which is essentially about living in the now, not existing and living in love.

Marion only comes in at the end of the novel and the reader will be left wanting to know more about her and her life.

How To Stop Time is available on Amazon and at all good book shops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Thursday 3 August 2017

Book Review: 11.22.63 by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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 In 11.22.63 by Stephen King Jake Epping an English Teacher is recruited by Al an Diner Owner to step back in time from 2011 to 1958.

Al has a rabbit hole – a bubble in time, in the pantry of his Diner that people can step through to go back in time to Tuesday 9th September 1958.

Al first sends Jake on a trip to explore because seeing is believing. Jake spends a few hours in 1958 and when he gets back to 2011, he finds that only two minutes have passed. Al says it’s always the same. No matter how long you stay in the past, even months or years, you have only ever been gone for 2 minutes.

Then Al, who is dying of lung cancer, tells Jake what he would like him to do. Al wants Jake to go back in time and stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy (JFK). Al has it all planned out. He would go back and do it himself, but he fears he doesn’t have the time.

Al gives Jake a pseudonym, George Amberson, along with ID, thousands of dollars (Al made by betting on sporting events) and extensive notes he made about the assassination. Jake tells Al the truth: he’s worried he’ll mess up.

Al reassures Jake can (mostly) reset the past by stepping back through the rabbit hole into 2011. It is then that Jake realises two things:
1) That if he is successful, he’ll have to stay and live out his life in the past.
2) That he may have to do some very bad things to achieve his mission (although he doesn’t actively acknowledge it at this point).

The plot idea of 11.22.63 was mildly interesting for a Brit and probably more intriguing for an American. The mammoth-sized book totals 740 pages. The pacing was reasonable at times and at other times excruciatingly slow.

Reading 11.22.63 felt like hard work, unlike any of the other Stephen King books I’ve read. Parts of the book were significantly over written and the last quarter of the book significantly underwritten. The ending was flat, lacking any depth or satisfactory conclusion.

However the description in 11.22.63 was exceptional. Whether this was from good research or Stephen King’s personal experience, I couldn’t tell.

Jake (George) is a good man that ends up doing terrible things including murder, with the intention of making a better future. He is a very redemptive character and the story is written from his perspective. By Stephen King writing the story from Jake’s first person perspective, it helped me develop some positive regard for the man.

Al was interesting but is removed far too early from the story. The other characters were all two dimensional. It would have been great to have more than one main character, as Jake’s voice did become tiresome about half way through the book.

I wanted to enjoy 11.22.63 as much as I’ve enjoyed all of the other Stephen King books that I’ve read. But it just didn’t happen.

11.22.63 is available to buy on Amazon and at all good bookshops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Saturday 22 July 2017
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