Vigilante Witch Hunter by Gary Turcotte

I get super excited when I see horror books or books with witches, magicians or fairies. The book ‘The Vigilante Witch hunter’ was offered for review from Bostick communications and I jumped at the chance. The author sent me not only this book but also the first book ‘Memoirs of a Fortune Teller’. Thank you Gary.

Title: Memoirs of a Fortune Teller

Author: Gary Turcotte
Publisher: Outskirts Press (October 19, 2008)
132 pages
3 out of 5 stars

My younger sis has reviewed this book some time back on my blog but I had to read it anyway before reading the sequel. So I thought why not add a short review as well.

Memoirs of a Fortune Teller is only 132 pages and is a quick read. I read it during read-a-thon and the sense of accomplishment was great :). This book is about a middle aged woman called Mary Ann. Mary Ann earns her living by reading fortunes at a traveling circus. She comes across various types of people in her job. Mary Ann reads fortunes of people who are going to die or are going to kill someone, of people who are going to win lotteries, or who are going to get divorced. At one point she reads the fortune of a girl who works at the same circus. She sees that her boyfriend is a very dangerous man and is going to kill this girl at some point of time. When a man is killed at the circus, the police ask Mary Ann to help them. In short, she gets involved and her life is in danger. This book is supposed to be her records as a fortune teller. There is a nice twist at the end which I didn’t see coming but is great anyway.

The writing I feel was choppy and straightforward. But I think it works for this book because it is short and because the plot is so strong. This book was definitely interesting.

Is this book stand alone? Yes, because the next book is about Mary Ann’s daughter Melissa.

Title: Vigilante Witch Hunter
Author: Gary Turcotte
Publisher: Outskirts Press (January 21, 2009)
252 pages
2.5 out of 5 stars

After Mary Ann’s death, Melissa, her daughter inherits all her powers as a fortune teller. But instead of working as a professional fortune teller, Melissa decides to keep this gift to herself and read fortunes as and when she wants to. Melissa helps Stephen to kill people who have wronged; it’s a kind of justice system for them. Melissa meets Richard who is also a fortune teller. They cannot read each others past or future as they both have the gift. They fall for each other and decide to get married. As Richard uses his gift to earn money in the financial market, in no time he gets involved with mobsters who want to earn money in a legal way. Melissa can’t help but get involved in the whole mess.

I found the book dragged at places. There were unnecessary descriptions which neither helped the story nor the writing style. Again…I found the writing…ummm…not so good. The similes and metaphors used were really weird and distracting.

I prefer the first book to the second any time as it has a crisp story. Memoirs of a fortune teller flows more smoothly then Vigilante witch hunter. There were a few grammatical errors and tense changes which were confusing. But then I kind of got around to what sentences to skip or ignore. This book is worth reading only for its story. I wish it had a better editor.

This book could be stand alone but reading a couple of reviews of the first book would help.