If you're like me, you don't get to read as much as you'd like, or rather, what you read isn't exactly "for pleasure." Therefore, when you do have the opportunity to read what you want, you get picky. In my case, that means turning to the works of a rare dozen or so authors who have never failed to engage me in their fictional worlds. C.C. Finlay is most definitely on that list. There's an ease to his use of language, a rich...
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The Patriot Witch is the first in a trilogy of historical fantasies in the Traitor to the Crown series by C.C. Finlay also known as Charles Coleman Finlay author of The Prodigal Troll. Del Rey is releasing the series one a month with the first this past April and the 2nd and 3rd books following a month apart similar to how Brent Weeks' Night Angel Trilogy and Naomi Novik's Temeraire / His Majesty's Dragon were done. I love...
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I couldn't even tell you how long it's been since I was totally sucked into a book by page five--before THE PATRIOT WITCH, that is. I almost missed my bus stop due to this book, and that hasn't happened on the front end of a book in far too long. Young Proctor Brown, descendant of the John Proctor tried for witchcraft in Salem, has powers that he does not understand, and that his mother has been pressing him to keep secret...
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(No spoilers here!) Finlay does a whole lot of things right in this book (setting it far, far above Katherine Kurtz's disappointing 1996 Two Crowns for America, the only other work I've run into that handles witches and the American Revolution). His characters are human, believable, and sympathetic. They know weakness and uncertainty; they make mistakes; they change their minds. For the most part the emotional interactions...
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It's April, 1775, the time of year when a young man's mind turns to romance, cattle, and his poor fashion options. Young Proctor Brown has many things on his mind, not the least of which is his attempted courtship of loyalist Emily Rucke. Her father is none too pleased by the pairing and Proctor means to change his mind. Matters are complicated by the fact that Proctor is a farmer, a militiaman, and a witch. It's no easy...
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