Just Finished Reading: Black Magic Woman by Justin Gustainis

After dispatching a group of vampires terrorising a small mid-western town, supernatural investigator Quincey Morris (descendent of the Quincey Morris who aided in the dispatch of Dracula) is called in on a case of a suspected poltergeist haunting a New England family. Quincey soon discovers however that this is no poltergeist but is in fact a curse laid on the family as part of a generational feud between witch clans going back to the original Salem trials. Out of his depth, Quincey calls on the services of white witch Libby Chastain to aid him fighting off the machinations of a very powerful witch with death on her mind. In the background meanwhile another witch is procuring the means to destroy all human life on Earth and is leaving the bodies of young children in her wake.

This was the first in a new series of supernatural urban thrillers and wasn’t bad at all. Although pretty run-of-the-mill for the most part the characters were interesting enough and the plot nicely paced. There were few actual surprises and some parts that were either superfluous or just plain silly but it was entertaining enough to keep those pages turning and was interesting enough to keep my attention through almost 500 of them. It was a pretty fast read too which is normally a good sign. It also appeared that the author had actually done a modicum of research into magic and the occult so it had a good overall feel to it. Certainly a reasonable read and I’ll probably be picking up the sequel at some point. If this falls into your lap at some point take a weekend having a bit of fantasy in your life. Otherwise maybe you should try something a bit more meaty or original.