Jeanette Baker's Witch Woman - Review

The first time Maggie McBride set foot in contemporary Salem, Massachusetts she was two years old, completely alone and stark naked. Now, thirty years later, a clairvoyant with a gift for profiling kidnappers, she is back to fulfill a personal quest. Armed with an ancient spinning wheel inherited from Annie McBride, her adoptive mother, she intends to solve the mystery of her sudden, unexpected appearance in The Old Burying Point Cemetery. Her only clue is the recurring dream of a woman from another time, a woman with a spinning wheel, an unusual whistle, and the same genetic mutation Maggie has, one brown eye, the other blue. As Maggie’s spinning improves, her ability to visit the past strengthens and she finds herself being drawn into a world that existed four centuries before, a terrifying world she would have inhabited except for the courage and magick of one woman.

Abigail-1692
In the meeting room, Inquisitors advance upon Abigail March and her child, Margaret She marshals her powers and channels the forces of nature. The world shifts and blackens. A strange roaring obliterates all sound and the air is thick with smoke. Bystanders are painfully seared, unable to move or breathe. Eventually, the air clears. But Abigail has been only partially successful. Three-year-old Margaret has disappeared through a time portal. For years Abigail searches to recall it. One night as the earth passed between the moon and sun, she is able to slip through the window, but the small community of Salem is no longer recognizable. Abigail turns to her powers and her spinning, sending out her summons to the universe, mindful of her shrinking time table, the enemies who followed her and the narrowing portal that will lead her home.

Jeanette Baker is the award-winning author of fifteen novels, published by Pocket, Kensington and Mira Books, many of them set in the lush countryside of historical and contemporary Ireland where she lives and writes during the summer months. Her ancestors, the O’Flahertys, hail from Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands located off the coast of Galway. She takes great pride in the prayer posted by the English over the ancient city gates, ‘From the wrath of the O’Flahertys, may the good Lord deliver us.’

Lauded as an author who has created a niche in the world of the time-travel paranormal, Jeanette’s previous stories have all taken place in Scotland and Ireland. Convinced that America has its own mystical elements, she set WITCH WOMAN in Salem, Massachusetts.

Jeanette graduated from the University of California at Irvine and holds a Masters Degree in Education. For the remainder of the year, she teaches in Southern California, reads constantly, attempts to navigate the confusing world of Facebook and, more recently e-publishing, concocts creations from interesting cook books and enjoys the company of friends and her grown children. She is the RITA award-winning author of the paranormal NELL.
You can visit Jeanette’s website at jeanettebaker.com Follow her blog, or visit her on Facebook.

My Thoughts

Witch Woman is the story of a mother and daughter separated by centuries. The journey to reconnect makes for a fascinating tale of the notorious Salem witch trials, Wiccan magic and a woman's need to solve the mystery of her origin.

Through a series of visions Maggie learns of a woman named Abigail and her young daughter Margaret who lived in Salem in the 1600's but she doesn't understand the connection to her own life. That is until the two finally meet and Abigail reveals the truth to Maggie. From there the tension really mounts.

Jeanette Baker has masterfully woven together the stories of Maggie and Abigail. Witch Woman is a mix of mystery and paranormal that is guaranteed to entertain. I really enjoyed the story and would recommend this book to all of my readers.