Night Witch by Jack Priest Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Night Witch
Book Review: Fast paced and original
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not sure where I first heard about this book, but I bought it from my favorite bookseller (Amazon) and was glad I did. I love horror, live and breathe the stuff, but it is so hard to find GOOD horror. So much is cheesy or predictable, or even formula driven.
Not so with Jack Priest's Night Witch. The horror factor is there all right, but it is presented in a fast paced, exciting, original, and believable manner.
What makes this book really stand out from the pack, and excel in its genre, is the choice of main characters. You find yourself engrossed in the character development. The characters become people who seem real, and you wind up caring for them, and rooting for them. It makes the suspense all that much more deliciously unbearable because you don't want the people you care about to get hurt.
I particularly liked that the book comes from a child's point of view. Not only is Arty a child of eleven, but one with social handicaps as well. Priest's writing has Arty gradually confronting, and then overcoming, his issues.
Another thing that was captivating for me is at the end, the bully Brad comes around to the other side and does something positive. Too many writers leave bullies as shallow people without any capability for change. This is one more example of Priest's originality. No formula driven stuff here.
And of course, there is the horror factor. A very original boogeyman, in the form of a soucouyant. Even the word alone sounds scary. This is a very old creature, as old as time and as eternal as time. And very, very dangerous.
This Night Witch Soucouyant wants something that the children have. Read the book to find out what. You will be glad you did. My copy is staying in my bookcase, where only the books I would read more than once live. I give Jack Priest's Night Witch five stars.
Book Review: Fun stuff.
Summary: 4 Stars
Jack Priest, Nightwitch (Bootleg, 2003)
Priest's third (and, to date, most recent) novel opens with a somewhat confusing chapter. Stick around, it'll all make sense in a few chapters. The gist, as related by the back cover: a professional thief has stolen a locket from a shape-changing witch (the title character), which contains her essence and grants her immortality. Thus, she wants it back. The catch is that said thief has given it to his daughter; she and a friend will have to face the witch themselves, for what adults will believe that they're being pursued by an immortal, shape-changing witch?
While not packing the same level of adrenaline of Priest's debut novel Ragged Man, this is a good, solid thriller that will keep you turning the pages. The characters are well-drawn, the action good, and the pacing excellent. Another winner from Jack Priest. *** ½
Book Review: Great horror. Great book.
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently discovered Jack Priest's books and was immediately intrigued by the originality of his work. He draws his material from the legends and lore of places such as the Caribbean Islands, and areas of the South Pacific I would assume he has traveled to many-a-time.
As unique a source of material as this can be, he is also a great writer. I have so far read Night Witch and Gecko, both of which are captivating novels that are impossible to put down. But I think Night Witch is probably my favorite. I have to agree with another reviewer who commented that one of the strong points of this book is that it is told from the perspective of children. This can be extremely tough to pull off, as children in literature and film (Jurassic Park leaps to mind), tend to be unrealistically mature for their age, not to mention whitty and all too often smarmy and annoying. Jack's characters here are engaging and written well within their age, yet their heroism is not forced, nor unbelievable. I found the character of Artie especially likable and was only disappointed when the story had to end. I would liked to have seen more of what becomes of these characters.
Great horror, great book.
Book Review: Imperfect, but fun
Summary: 4 Stars
John Coffee is a thief who got more than he bargained for when he stole a magical locket from a soucouyant, the last of a breed of shape-shifting, werewolf-y, Caribbean witches who are next to impossible to kill. The Witch has been hunting Coffee ever since, looking to get her locket back but also doing her best to rip his throat out. Problem is, before he understood its significance, Coffee gave the locket to his daughter, eleven-year-old Carolina. He's been distancing himself from her since with a view to protecting her from the Witch, but now he's back on the scene and trying to warn her.
Jack Priest's Night Witch follows Coffee's battles with the Witch, high-octane fights that leave him injured and her shooting off skyward as a ball of flame. The Witch's mythology is related in the book, but we're never given her point of view. She remains an unknowable bogeyman, an Energizer bunny of a mythological demon, bent on destruction.
Because Coffee's part of the story is pretty much all action, it's less interesting than the other story Priest tells in the book, about the incipient relationship between Coffee's daughter and her classmate Arty, a persecuted kid who bravely faces the more mundane monsters in his life--school bullies and his abusive father. In the face of the danger posed by the Night Witch, as well as the bullies, Carolina and Arty's relationship develops more rapidly than it might have otherwise.
Night Witch isn't perfect: it's not clear why the guys in the boat are after Coffee at the beginning of the book; Priest's female characters seem unusually comfortable with stripping in front of men they don't know well; there is a paragraph-long political rant on page 163 that seems out of place; Arty's conflict with his father ends a little too conveniently; the mothers of both children are hands-off in their parenting to a degree that's hard to believe. But on the whole, it's a fun read, like watching an old Night Stalker episode with an appealing YA element thrown in. In fact, though it's not marketed as such, I might recommend the book to the YA crowd as well as adults, given that Arty and Carolina are such appealing characters and carry so much of the story.
-- Debra Hamel
Book Review: Jack Priest's best
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was one of three sent to me by Jack Priest with the request that I read and review them all: Gecko, Ragged Man and Night Witch. I enjoyed reading all three, but I considered Night Witch the best in plot, character development and pure imagination.Supernatural creatures of the Jack Priest universe aren't contained by the fences of traditional boundaries. They slip through and explode into new and unexpected avenues of the mind, the dark closet and the sounds just outside the bedroom window. Priest combines human thriller-drama with hand grenades of outrageous (but almost believable) nightmare creatures in a way that will keep you reading until you finish (even if you have to get up early in the morning and really need to put this down and get some shuteye).
Night Witch is Priest's best to date. Read it.