Friday, May 12, 2017

"The Witches of Moonlight Ridge" Book Review




    BOOK REVIEW

Reviewed by Susan Sewell for Readers' Favorite
The Witches of Moonlight Ridge (The Moonlight Ridge Series Volume 2) by Ramey Channell is a charmingly delightful southern tale. Autumn has arrived at Moonlight Ridge, and Lily Clair and her cousin Willie T. are excited about starting fourth grade. They are happy that their teacher is the lovable and jolly Miss Tomkins. Sadly, a week after school begins, tragedy strikes. Miss Tomkins has an accident and is unable to teach. However, Miss Tomkins's successor, Erskine Batson, the driver of the Eden garbage truck, is a fascinating replacement. Erskine is teaching them many strange subjects, such as Music Theory and the Science of Archaeology. But for Lily Claire and Willie T., not all of his lessons into the strange and mysterious stop in the classroom. In a chance meeting with Erskine at a stagecoach stop ruins, the three experience bizarre and inexplicable events that have them questioning whether the place is haunted. But what is haunting the old ruins and the woods around them, ghosts or witches?

The Witches of Moonlight Ridge is a stunningly entertaining southern fiction novel. The arcane knowledge of the mountains and the superstitions of its people are infused within the story, giving it an eerie aura that charms the reader and lulls them into believing the mysterious and inexplicable. With its spooky ambiance, it is the perfect book to curl up with and read on a windy fall night at Halloween. This delightful sequel reprises the characters from Moonlight Ridge and adds a few more eccentric and colorful individuals. All of the characters are multi-faceted and complex. Erskine Batson is a prime example, with the words of Shakespeare and Pythagoras's equations spilling from his lips during the week, and doing garbage runs for Eden on the weekends. He is my favorite character, and I enjoyed his tolerance and participation with Lily Claire and Willie T. and their escapades. This is a sensational novel that will enchant and delight readers from the ages of ten on up to a hundred!