"I cannot let the memory of what happened change the way I feel about this chamber. This is my domain. Mine. Mine to keep and guard, mine to use. Tonight it will be the meeting place for five senior witches including myself. I have requested them by name, the most trusted and experienced members of the coven. I need their wisdom. I need their help."
The Midnight Witch by Paula Brackston is a dark novel of life, death and rebirth. It is the third installment of The Shadow Chronicles and it has held me captivated from the very first chapter. Each novel of the Chronicles stands alone, so you don't need to have read the previous titles to enjoy this one and vice versa. In this book we follow Lady Lilith, Head Witch of the Lazarus Coven and the darling of London aristocracy.
Set during the Edwardian period, the novel begins in 1913, just before the First World War breaks out. Lilith is forced to lead a double life, being a young lady out in High Society - while she is also a witch who can speak to the dead. Her coven is one that maintains regular contact with spirits - not via table tapping theatricals, but in a more natural guardian-spirit sense.
In lots of ways this novel reads more like a ghost story than a witchy one, but that is one of the things I found most enjoyable about it. It's different from all the other witchy books I've read. As you can image, being a witch who sees and speaks to spirits can bring about its own problems, but when war breaks out Lilith is inundated with the ghosts of restless spirits who need her help. To add to her troubles there is a rival clan of sorcerers who want the magic she possesses and they will stop at nothing to get it. When bombs begin to drop on London she must use all her powers to ensure that her coven survives and her rivals are defeated.
This is an enchanting novel of sparkling balls and china tea-cups, of dashing, ghostly Cavaliers and dark malevolent spirits. There is an adorable black cat familiar, a secret chamber where rituals are held and magic is cast - and a touch of necromancy thrown in for good measure! Although there are more ghosts than spells in this book, that doesn't diminish the magical atmosphere of the novel.
Lilith is is lovely character, her suitors are suitably dashing, the world she inhabits is beautiful and enchanting. With the outbreak of war the novel takes an appropriately darker turn, in keeping with the chaos and sorrow of that time, yet through it all good magic shines its light upon the blighted bomb-stricken city of London.
While The Midnight Witch isn't my favourite of Brackston's novels, that being The Silver Witch, I have enjoyed reading this one nonetheless and I have spent the last few days sitting in my garden, book in hand, escaping into this charming world of magic and wonder, ghosts and ghouls.
If you like witchy novels, ghost stories or you are a fan of the TV series Ghost Whisperer, then you might like this book too. Paula Brackston is one of my new go-to authors for witchy novels and I am delighted that I discovered her work. If you are looking for something to read while on holiday I highly recommend The Midnight Witch.
Happy Reading!
Marie x
#AD: This novel is published by Little Brown Book Group and is available now in all formats.
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