Book Review: Wit'ch Star

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Wit'ch Star     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
James Clemens
Class/Genre:   Fantasy
Series: Banned and Banished # 5
Del Rey, Dec 2002, $24.95, 544 pp.

After Elena the Wit’ch triumphed in several confrontations with the deadly Dark Lord including the destruction of the Weirgates, she resides on the Rosewood Throne recovering from her harrowing experiences with her husband Er’rill providing solace. However her respite ends when Lord Tyrus introduces Elena to Harlequin Quail, a jester serving as a master spy just in from the cold of performing at the Dark Lord’s Blackhall keep. Harlequin claims that one Weirgate mightier than the three just destroyed remains open but the little man has no idea where it is, but that the Black Heart must be stopped by Midsummer’s Eve, only one moon away.

Elena and her companions begin the impossible quest to obliterate the final Weirgate before the Dark Lord can evilly use it. However, though keeping her own confidence Elena knows deep inside her heart that in the end it will be a duel to the death at high moon between she and he with the future of the world as the stake.

Though the story line is Tolkien fantasy with a good vs. evil quest, fans of the series will delight in the fifth Banned and the Banished novel, WIT’CH STAR. Apostrophe apologies aside, the current tale is an engaging confrontation that never slows down until the new scholars determine why the Kelvish Scrolls became banned. The key to these novels is that recurring characters never lose their essence though they grow, mature, and change inside well - written quest-based story lines. James Clemens has grown, matured, and changed as an author, which bewit’ches his readers to want more works from the Commonwealth scholars.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner