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Witch-Light
Twenty-year-old Valerie Kittridge is horrified to learn that her father has had a stroke. As an only child and with her mother dead, her father is all she has in the world, and she leaves her life as a film student in California to nurse her father back to health. On her wild, late-night car ride to Duerme, the small town in New Mexico where her father lives with his girlfriend, she is besieged with a host of strange and terrifying dark omens and flashbacks to her childhood. For there is something waiting for Valerie at Duerme, not just her stricken father, but an irresistable stranger who had saved her life many years ago—the man of her dreams.
In Witch-Light, Nancy Holder and Melanie Tem collaborate on the second of their fascinating demon-lover stories. The first one, Making Love, was a sensual variation on the Frankenstein theme. Witch-Light is the mesmerizing story of a dark, mysterious, devastatingly handsome man named Gabriel, a bruja, or male witch, who draws Valerie into a twisted romance that will take her to the very edge of love and obsession.
Full of the magic and mystery of the Southwest, Witch-Light is a bittersweet, compelling mix of romance, horror and fantasy, a dark journey into a strange and wonderful world of folk magic, superstition, and obsessive love that knows no bounds.
- GenresHorror
339 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 8, 1996
2 people are currently reading
54 people want to read
About the author
Nancy Holder
353 books2,407 followersNancy Holder, New York Times Bestselling author of the WICKED Series, has just published CRUSADE - the first book in a new vampire series cowritten with Debbie Viguie. The last book her her Possession series is set to release in March 2011.
Nancy was born in Los Altos, California, and her family settled for a time in Walnut Creek. Her father, who taught at Stanford, joined the navy and the family traveled throughout California and lived in Japan for three years. When she was sixteen, she dropped out of high school to become a ballet dancer in Cologne, Germany, and later relocated to Frankfurt Am Main.
Eventually she returned to California and graduated summa cum laude from the University of California at San Diego with a degree in Communications. Soon after, she began to write; her first sale was a young adult romance novel titled Teach Me to Love.
Nancy’s work has appeared on the New York Times, USA Today, LA Times, amazon.com, LOCUS, and other bestseller lists. A four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association, she has also received accolades from the American Library Association, the American Reading Association, the New York Public Library, and Romantic Times.
She and Debbie Viguié co-authored the New York Times bestselling series Wicked for Simon and Schuster. They have continued their collaboration with the Crusade series, also for Simon and Schuster, and the Wolf Springs Chronicles for Delacorte (2011.) She is also the author of the young adult horror series Possessions for Razorbill. She has sold many novels and book projects set in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Saving Grace, Hellboy, and Smallville universes.
She has sold approximately two hundred short stories and essays on writing and popular culture. Her anthology, Outsiders, co-edited with Nancy Kilpatrick, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award in 2005.
She teaches in the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program, offered through the University of Southern Maine. She has previously taught at UCSD and has served on the Clarion Board of Directors.
She lives in San Diego, California, with her daughter Belle, their two Corgis, Panda and Tater; and their cats, David and Kittnen Snow. She and Belle are active in Girl Scouts and dog obedience training.
Nancy was born in Los Altos, California, and her family settled for a time in Walnut Creek. Her father, who taught at Stanford, joined the navy and the family traveled throughout California and lived in Japan for three years. When she was sixteen, she dropped out of high school to become a ballet dancer in Cologne, Germany, and later relocated to Frankfurt Am Main.
Eventually she returned to California and graduated summa cum laude from the University of California at San Diego with a degree in Communications. Soon after, she began to write; her first sale was a young adult romance novel titled Teach Me to Love.
Nancy’s work has appeared on the New York Times, USA Today, LA Times, amazon.com, LOCUS, and other bestseller lists. A four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association, she has also received accolades from the American Library Association, the American Reading Association, the New York Public Library, and Romantic Times.
She and Debbie Viguié co-authored the New York Times bestselling series Wicked for Simon and Schuster. They have continued their collaboration with the Crusade series, also for Simon and Schuster, and the Wolf Springs Chronicles for Delacorte (2011.) She is also the author of the young adult horror series Possessions for Razorbill. She has sold many novels and book projects set in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Saving Grace, Hellboy, and Smallville universes.
She has sold approximately two hundred short stories and essays on writing and popular culture. Her anthology, Outsiders, co-edited with Nancy Kilpatrick, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award in 2005.
She teaches in the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program, offered through the University of Southern Maine. She has previously taught at UCSD and has served on the Clarion Board of Directors.
She lives in San Diego, California, with her daughter Belle, their two Corgis, Panda and Tater; and their cats, David and Kittnen Snow. She and Belle are active in Girl Scouts and dog obedience training.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 28, 2020
I can accept unlikable characters in a story if they serve a purpose, but Valerie, the main character of Witch-light, pushes that acceptance. She comes across as an entitled, insufferable person, getting mad about having to give up her dream to go to Arizona to take care of her father, and then getting mad when someone else is already doing all the care for her. She's like this the whole book, coming across as someone who's angry at the world, no matter what.
I believe that was the authors' point, but it made it harder and harder to sympathize with her as she continued to be this way. I figured a redemption was to take place (her actions are selfish, her choices are foolish, so surely she can't be like this the entire book), but what redemption there is takes place so late in the book that it feels like it ends too soon. I need to know more, like what's going to happen to her career, what's going to happen to his father's lover, what's going to happen to Valerie, but we don't get any answers.
The story is well-written, and it raises a lot of questions, but there needed to be more to justify Valerie's redemption. I think the authors take it for granted that to explain that redemption, but it's like Daenerys's heel-turn in season eight -- it needs more time to be convincing.
Having read both authors, I feel like this is more a Holder book than a Tem book. Holder gets first billing on the title page, so maybe it is, and Making Love, also by both authors, feels like a Tem book, and she gets first billing there. I'm curious to know what the collaborative process is when these authors work together on a book.
I believe that was the authors' point, but it made it harder and harder to sympathize with her as she continued to be this way. I figured a redemption was to take place (her actions are selfish, her choices are foolish, so surely she can't be like this the entire book), but what redemption there is takes place so late in the book that it feels like it ends too soon. I need to know more, like what's going to happen to her career, what's going to happen to his father's lover, what's going to happen to Valerie, but we don't get any answers.
The story is well-written, and it raises a lot of questions, but there needed to be more to justify Valerie's redemption. I think the authors take it for granted that to explain that redemption, but it's like Daenerys's heel-turn in season eight -- it needs more time to be convincing.
Having read both authors, I feel like this is more a Holder book than a Tem book. Holder gets first billing on the title page, so maybe it is, and Making Love, also by both authors, feels like a Tem book, and she gets first billing there. I'm curious to know what the collaborative process is when these authors work together on a book.
September 5, 2011
Great book but the ending pisses me off.
June 23, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed this literary piece and had the pleasure of working on it with Crossroads Press. A must read!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews