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The Gina Champion Mysteries #5
Nightshade
Witchcraft is a lot tougher than it looks.
It's not like on the television, where witches airily wave their hands about and chairs start flying around the room. In fact, it's a lot of hard work, sometimes it's even boring. My introduction to witchcraft took place in Alyce Nightingale's kitchen, in the summer leading up to my senior year.
Not that Alyce's kitchen looked like any other old lady's kitchen I'd ever seen. But then, Alyce was not your average old lady. She was eighty-one and wore her long, grey hair decorated with coloured glitter hairclips. She needed help getting in and out of an armchair, but once she was up she could dance little pirouettes while she sang old jazz songs. Even though her memory was bad when it came to names and birthdays, she was sharp as a tack when I did something wrong. On the day the trouble started, I was sitting on her kitchen floor in front of an enormous pantry, sorting jars of dried herbs and flowers, while she cooed down the phone to her latest boyfriend, Dennis, who was sixty-two and smitten.
It's not like on the television, where witches airily wave their hands about and chairs start flying around the room. In fact, it's a lot of hard work, sometimes it's even boring. My introduction to witchcraft took place in Alyce Nightingale's kitchen, in the summer leading up to my senior year.
Not that Alyce's kitchen looked like any other old lady's kitchen I'd ever seen. But then, Alyce was not your average old lady. She was eighty-one and wore her long, grey hair decorated with coloured glitter hairclips. She needed help getting in and out of an armchair, but once she was up she could dance little pirouettes while she sang old jazz songs. Even though her memory was bad when it came to names and birthdays, she was sharp as a tack when I did something wrong. On the day the trouble started, I was sitting on her kitchen floor in front of an enormous pantry, sorting jars of dried herbs and flowers, while she cooed down the phone to her latest boyfriend, Dennis, who was sixty-two and smitten.
190 pages, Paperback
First published February 6, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 7, 2014
I read the Gina Champion Mystery series when I was 13/14, but for some reason could never find a copy of this book. Now I'm 22 and just found a copy of this at a local library. It was such a fun read that took me right back to my early teens, staying up too late on school nights wishing I had bright red hair and a psychic ability. It was so bittersweet to finally be able to finish the series ❤
August 18, 2017
Nice, light-hearted (okay, so there is a nasty spirit that gets free and causes havoc, but still) teenage supernatural romp, with a bit of Russian history thrown in for entertainment. Well paced, nicely written. Haven't read widely enough to know whether the blurb's claim that "Kim has gained a reputation as Australia's leading dark fantasy writer" has any validity, but certainly the writing is good enough to make it believable. I'm probably not going to go out of my way to acquire my own copy of this one, but I will certainly keep an eye out for other books by the same author.
April 17, 2019
Great book.
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December 15, 2009i love the way she based this book around love, troubles and the way Kim deepens our knowledge of the Characters.
February 25, 2012
it was good!
March 5, 2012
I love Kim Wilkins and her character Gina Champion - YA fiction has so much to offer these days :)
July 26, 2012
Another brilliant book by Kim Wilkins. She keeps writing amazing books :) I'll definitely try to read ALL of her books. I'm a big fan
May 9, 2013
Not a bad little book, fairly clean and suitable for the younger teenagers.... Good witchy human story...
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews