If you've already read the first book in this series, you've discovered the author's beautiful writing style. It's a bit gothic, dark, erotic and sometimes even grotesque. It make me feel like I'm reading something written decades ago instead of anything contemporary, which can make it a slower read if you're not used to it. I can't say that it doesn't have it's slow spots, because it did, but it's unlike a lot of books that would have normally made me give up in frustration because the stories just weren't worth it. This one is. It's just so interesting that I wanted to keep reading, regardless, because I had to know what would happen next.

The author manages to tell interesting parts of early American history through the eyes of Herculine in this novel. I also thought it was brilliant how he weaved Edgar Allan Poe (albeit a fictitious one) into the story. I found this quite fitting, considering the genre of the story.

Overall, it's really a great book (and series) that you should take the time to read if you're interesting in the history of early witchcraft (before it became so P.C.). There may be somethings in it that could be considered paranormal, but it's really all a matter of perspective.

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2nd in series to Book of Shadows. Continues the adventures of Herculine, the witch.

gothic genre

Back cover says "IN a rodle of shadows an dperils, she will taste the forbidden...and find redemption. Woman, man, witch, communer with the dead, Herculine is bound for America in September 1826, leaving behind a strange and violent past in France and armed with the powerful knowledge gained from a quartet of remarkable mentors. In Virginia, fate will lead Herculine to the mysterious Mammy Venus--possessor of gifts at once wondrolus and terrifying--to a haunted young poet named Edgar Poe...and to Celia, a beautiful, damaged salve, who stirs her would-be savior/lover's passions and ignites her dark, otherworldly powers. So begins an odyssey of self-discovery and erotic obsession that will carry Herculine from the coastal wilds of Florida to the chaotic streets of New York--to be liberated by carnality and forever changed in the aftermath of bloody rebellion."

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