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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Enjoyed the second read as much as the first! Nov 06, 2011
By Beach Girl
This mystery novel is a thoroughly enjoyable and fast read. Some of the dialog is laugh-out-loud funny and I didn't want to put the book down. When I read it shortly after it was published I couldn't decide if I wanted to be Cate, the family's matriarch, or have her as my best friend. Having just reread Shadows on Samhain, I still can't decide. I am sure of one thing. I am looking forward to the next book in the series so that I can read more about Cate and her family. I particularly enjoy the loving, witty, and sometimes prickly exchanges in the novel between Cate's family members and really appreciate the portrayal of the family's female characters as strong and capable. All of the story's characters are interesting but, I must admit, I particularly love Cate and her "tween" grandson PZ. This is a fun and intriguing mystery novel and I highly recommend it.
Exuberantly earthy, sensual, caring, and funny Nov 15, 2009
By Kathleen Jenks
Shadows on Samhain is a first novel by my witty, smart friend and former graduate student, Dr. Druscilla French. She intends it to be the first in a series of eight "Wheel of the Year" novels involving characters from the same large, contemporary, extended Colorado family, all of whom still retain fascinating vestiges of the abilities, gifts, strengths, quirks, and "magic" they've somehow carried over from earlier incarnations on Mount Olympus. This makes for some amusing "inside jokes" along with necessary name-changes -- e.g., Artemis is still Artemis but her brother Apollo is now Atticus (or Uncle At); Hecate is now the powerful, sensible, wonderfully earthy Cate; Medusa, once headless, is now Mattie, rather disoriented in her personal life, but a brilliant attorney when she pulls herself together and fights for the wronged; her winged horse-son Pegasus is now a galloping, hyperactive teenaged boy named PZ; Chrysaor, the original human-brother of Pegasus, is now Chrys, PZ's charming, savvy twin sister.
You don't have to be interested in Greek mythology, however, to appreciate this fine novel. Most of the book is a real page-turner (the only exceptions being portions of Cate's Samhain party in chapters 9 and 11 in which some untidy "plot-holes" appear concerning the troubling absence of a young waitress, gentle Flora -- but if that's a first novel's only real problem, you definitely have a winner!).
French creates strong, likaeble characters, especially her women. The ritual Samhain elements are creative and evocative -- really well done and clearly emerging out of the author's own decades of ritual experience. Her descriptions of Colorado nature and wildlife in the Rockies are exquisite, seemingly effortless, like Japanese sumi-e paintings. Towards the end, there are scenes of great beauty that are also simultaneously laugh-out-loud hilarious. She has perfect pitch with her Olympians but, still more impressively, she also has it when it comes to capturing the cramped inner world of fundamentalist militia members, whose vengeful anger threatens the world of Cate and her extended family.
The novel has underlying threads of deep kindness and balance, even when it comes to French's treatment of the fundamentalists, whose lives, sometimes chillingly ruthless, but also unexpectedly poignant, come across vividly. Above all, Cate and her family are real people with real weaknesses as well as strengths. They are exuberantly earthy, sensual, caring, and, like the best of deities (former or otherwise), still totally committed to values that serve humanity as well as the natural world around us. I greatly look forward to the next novel, which will be set at the next Celtic Sabbat on the Year's great Wheel: Winter Solstice.
Awesome Read! Jan 05, 2009
By William H. McVay
This is a phenomenal introduction to an amazing family and those surrounding their lives. I have to admit that I read some parts a couple of times as I felt like there were actually two different stories being portrayed in the writing. I cannot wait to see what the A's do next! There is absolutely something here for everyone and I would love to spend any Saturday evening with them finding out more.
Magnificent Women Dec 03, 2008
By T. Rowe
"Foremost a Maven"
I stayed up late to finish reading "Shadows on Samhain." Great read, worth losing sleep over. Welcome to the family of strong beautiful women weaving spells and healing. And a mystery to boot. Very enjoyable and thought-provoking (in a very gentle way).
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