5.0 out of 5 stars A winner, a keeper & a thoroughly satisfying read, April 28, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Catriona (Mass Market Paperback)

California lawyer Kate Sutherland travels from the west coast to Salem, Massachusetts to help Celia Ward with her tax difficulties. After having Kate remove her contact lens, Celia probes into Kate's eyes and informs the attorney that all the answers to her deepest questions about her cryptic youth including her birthplace can be found on an island off of the Scottish coast. Needing to understand more about her roots, Kate goes to the Shetland Islands off of Scotland to meet Maura Sutherland, a high priestess of an ancient religion still practiced on the islands. ....... Almost from the first moment she steps onto her native soil, Kate sees visions of herself dressed in clothing that is five centuries old. She turns to local historian Niall McCormack for help in comprehending what she "sees". He tells her that she is envisioning Catriona Wells, the first Countess of Bothwell, who was trapped by the late fifteenth century royal conflict between England and Scotland. Her tragic life haunts Kate. Kate must somehow fix the past to share a loving future with Niall, the individual she now loves. ....... 

Jeanette Baker moves to the head of the historical romance class with CATRIONA, an absolutely stunning and unique mixing of several genres (supernatural, historical, and contemporary romances) into a great novel that will delight fans from all three genres. The characters from both sides of the Atlantic and from both centuries are first rate, well described, and humanized, turning a brilliant story line into one of the top novels of the year to date. .......Harriet Klausner

The Irish Wit

Gone are the days when ten and twelve children per family was typical of an Irish household. Somewhere around the early 70’s when television became standard, incomes and education rose and birth control, even in Catholic Ireland, became accessible, family sizes shrank. Compared with America’s 2.3 births per family, the Irish weigh in at 2.1, nowhere near the number seen 40 years ago, but still the highest in Europe. What I find even more interesting is the age, 31, at which Irish women give birth for the first time compared with America’s 25. The times they are a-changing.

What does this mean for Irish fiction? Unless an author is writing about experiences taking place before the 70’s, it means that cultural differences are much more subtle. With the exception of terminology (footpaths not sidewalks and car parks not parking lots) no garbage disposals or window screens, very little ice in your drinks and relatively few air-conditioned buildings, the creation of a contemporary Irish novel cannot ignore expensive cars, manicured toenails, designer clothing, fine dining, gracious homes, no smoking in the pubs and the breath-stealing cost of a haircut and color. What is left, you might ask if the cottage with its peat fire, the pint all around, tweed-capped men riding bicycles and the warm invitation of a pot of tea complete with scones has been relegated to the same compost pile as yesterday’s cabbage?

While I haven’t seen a tweed cap on a man under the age of 50 in a long time, except in America's swing-dance scenarios, there is still much to write about if your story is set in the Emerald Isle. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in all of Europe compares with the beautiful green and gold patchwork of the Irish countryside, the willingness of her people to engage in conversation, or the mind-boggling realization that the town where you stop for your tea and pastry dates back to the 12^th century.

What I look for in a novel with an Irish setting is something that cannot be generated by research across the water in America or on the Internet. Somehow, back in the annals of time, the Irish people developed minds so witty, so rapid in response, so able to twist language to their advantage, the words so powerful and perfect in their innuendo, this ability so singularly cultural that it simply must be ingrained in their DNA memory.

Those not native born are left with eyes wide and mouths agape unable to compete and sometimes even engage. There is nothing left if we want to capture this phenomenon but to develop a good memory, keep a tape recorder in our  bags or plan a lengthy visit, not too bad an idea. There is, after all, that pot of tea complete with homemade scones.

Witch Woman - 5-STAR Amazon Review

Customer Reviews

Witch Woman

3 Reviews 5 star:  (3) 4 star:  (0) 3 star:  (0) 2 star:  (0) 1 star:  (0)

Average Customer Review 5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) Share your thoughts with other customers Create your own review

Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

Most Helpful First | Newest First

5.0 out of 5 stars The Magic is in the Telling, February 10, 2011

By 

Patricia Perry (Mission Viejo, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Witch Woman (Kindle Edition)

If you love a good story, a story with history and intrigue, a story with strong characters you care about, then "Witch Woman" by Jeanette Baker delivers. Seamless time travel brings the ancient Salem witch trials into modern times and weaves its spell over the reader. Highly recommend.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse | Permalink

Comment Comment

5.0 out of 5 stars Witch Woman Educates as it Entertains, February 7, 2011

By 

BillS - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Witch Woman (Kindle Edition)

A fascinating paranormal story of Salem of today and the witch trials if old told through the life of one woman, then and now. One blue eye and one brown tie her to her past--that and her clairvoyent gift. Jeanette Baker's newest and one of her best. jhs.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse | Permalink

Comment Comment

5.0 out of 5 stars editorial review, February 7, 2011

By 

D.Farrell - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Witch Woman (Kindle Edition)

In two different centuries, four hundred years apart, the lives of Abigail March and her daughter, Maggie McBride, play out along parallel lines, both women blessed and cursed by a selective birthright. Born in the breach position at the exact moment when earth's shadow slides across a full blue moon, their kind are destined to walk alone, to see truth behind words, in the blink of an eye, in the twitch of a muscle, in the whisper of a sigh. They are the chosen of the goddess, marked by a startling mutation, heterochromia iridium, one brown eye, the other blue.
Abigail, wife to John March, a selectman in the rigid Calvinist community of Salem, Massachusetts, is not what she seems. An expatriate from Barbados, she indentured herself to the March family for seven years in exchange for passage to the colonies. Abigail is beautiful, even with those unnatural eyes, and soon captures the heart of the March's oldest son. For ten years she has kept her head down, her emotions in check. But now she is accused of witchcraft along with her three-year-old daughter, Margaret. At the trial, she horrifies the community with a startling demonstration, opening a time portal into the future where she and her child can escape. But Magick proves fickle and Abigail's rusty powers fall short. Only Margaret is sent into the modern world of 1974 where she is found, naked and without speech, by Annie McBride, a wiccan, in the Old Burying Point Cemetery.
Maggie's unexplained arrival and her unusual abilities force her adoptive mother to leave Salem and live a nomadic life. Maggie grows up to become a clairvoyant, specializing in kidnapping cases. Not until Annie is near death does she learn the particulars of her adoption and the possible source of her troubling dreams. She returns to Salem searching for her past. Meanwhile, Abigail finds the time portal and slips through to an overwhelming modern world, assuming a new identity and hoping that Maggie will come to her. Unknown to both women are the dangers of the old world's dark forces, a missing child in contemporary Salem, and Maggie's "sight" blurring and dim as her ties to old Salem strengthen.

Long and Short Romance Reviews: Legacy by Jeanette Baker

Long and Short Romance Reviews: Legacy by Jeanette Baker: "Legacy by Jeanette Baker Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca Genre: Time travel, Contemporary, Historical Length: Full Length (368 pages..."

Are Re-issued Books Outdated?

The answer to that interesting question is, "yes" and "no."  Re-issued books are definitely dated, but are they outdated?  I think, the person who asked this question really meant, "Are books originally published years ago and then released again, outdated?" The answer to that would have to be, no.

Just as film junkies love old movies like, "Gone With The Wind," and "Casablanca," readers in love with certain time periods, subjects, settings and history will appreciate books written in styles that would no longer be picked up as an original novel by a current publisher. From today's perspective, Vivian Leigh's unnatural dramatics might leave a casting director cold, just as the language in Sense and Sensibility might not be pleasure reading for contemporary teenagers. Already, Star Trek, the original, ET and 2001, A Space Odyssey, when lined up beside the computer generated graphics of today are laughable if graphics is what we are comparing. Last of the Mohicans, Huckleberry Finn, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Martian Chronicles with their lengthy narrative, their lack of white space, their omniscient narration would never make the cut with editors who weren't born until after the fall of the Berlin Wall or, for that matter, with children whose attention spans were molded by video games and soundbites.

All of which does not mean that "Gone With The Wind" and Jane Austin should be consigned to time capsules and buried beneath the ground to be resurrected and laughed at by generations born five hundred years from now. There is something to be said for the classics of yesterday.  Pair them with a lonely rainy night, a glass of good red wine or a pot of tea, a bit of buttery shortbread, a blazing fire and a hint of heartbreak and you have all the makings of my idea of what heaven has in store for us.

Are all re-issued books of the caliber of Wuthering Heights? Maybe not. But in this competitive world of publishing where it is easier to win the lottery than to be published by a reputable publishing house, the re-issuing of a previously published novel is a feather in its author's cap.

Love the Lilt

According to a recent article in the IRISH EXAMINER:  

On the morning of July 18 last when Sheila Edgeworth of Martara, Ballylongford was cleaning out her range, she found, what her husband Pat Joe believed to be, a 7th century brooch with the Greek symbol for  Christ. 

Finding the brooch is remarkable in itself, especially given the fact that it not only survived 16 centuries buried in a Tullahennell bog, but somehow also managed to elude the blades of a track machine, the processing into sods with a hopper, and finally Mrs. Edgeworth’s turf fire. That the brooch turned up in North Kerry isn’t so unusual. This estuary of the Shannon was probably a local trade route for ships sailing to and from the Mediterranean, but its perfect condition certainly is.

Still, it isn’t the history of the brooch or the lovely Celtic markings or even the fact of this irrefutable evidence of widespread Christianity so long ago, that makes me shake my head in amazement. It is the charm of the language itself, Martara, Ballylongford, Tullahennell, and all the other lovely names that are lost to those of us with zip codes and five digit addresses.

Despite its interminable economic difficulties, its graft-ridden local officials and the endless, miserable gray of its skies, there is still something romantic about a country that refuses to organize itself into postal codes. When I send mail to Ireland, the address looks like this: 

Mary O’Callaghan,

Clogher Li, Ballyard, Tralee,

County Kerry, Ireland,

 

Eileen Canty

Drumnacurra at the cross,

Kerry, Ireland

Paddy Connelly, musician,

Mitchell’s Crescent,

Tralee, Ireland.

Names like Ballylongford, Killarney, Dingle, BallyMcCelligot, Caheersaveen, Ballybunion, Kilflyn, Kilorglin, Kilronen, Skibbereen slip off the tongues of tourists with the same lilt found in the brogues of locals. The assigning of names like Noreen (little Nora), Pat Joe (Patrick, son of Joseph), Johnny Christmas (John who visits on Christmas Day), Micky Pa (Michael, son of Patrick), Cissy Bon (Christina with the blonde hair) are as common as bacon and cabbage for Sunday dinner.

There is no question about it: Americans are intrigued with accents, especially accents associated with English speakers from the British Isles. We instinctively believe the speaker has more legitimacy, sounds more intelligent, is somehow worthier of our attention than one who hails from within our own borders. Maybe it has to do with the roots of our literature. Who can argue with Shakespeare, Yeats, Joyce and Dunne? Perhaps it’s the call of our own DNA memory. The United States is, after all, a country initially settled by the British and their nearby colonies. All of our presidents have English/Irish/Scottish ancestry. Even our current President Obama’s late mother traces her roots to Moneygall.

None of the above really matters, of course. It’s enough to settle back with a cup of strong tea, a slice of soda bread and a long afternoon ahead. You won’t be disappointed. Listening to a native Irish speaker wax on over politics, Irish football, or even the weather is pure entertainment. Slan Abhaille

 

I'm delighted to report that as of today, LEGACY is on the shelf of your local bookstore. It may be ordered from Amazon in Print or e-Book format. Read on for reviews.

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"Tantalizing...Ms. Baker kept me intrigued and enthralled...a thought-provoking novel not to be missed."
-Rendezvous

The last of the Murrays...
Christina Murray is elated to inherit her family's ancestral home in Scotland. But upon her arrival she is confronted by her breathtakingly handsome new neighbor, Ian Douglas...and an ancient family curse that comes with the castle.

A violent legacy of passion...

Seduced by Ian's easy Scottish charm by day, Christina dreams at night of three raven-haired beauties, ancestors who fell victim to the curse one generation after another: Katrine, the fiery Jacobite supporter who lost her heart to an Englishman; Jeanne, an accused witch; and Mairi, who shared a forbidden passion with the King of England.
Now it's Christina's turn to lie in that cursed bed... and loving Ian might just cost her life.

What Readers Say:

"One of the most fascinating books I've ever read...Kept me up until 3 am!"

"I'm delighted with Ms. Baker's style. It isn't often you find an author so adept at storytelling who also has a unique and beautiful command of the English language."

About the Author

Award-winning author of fifteen novels, including the RITA Award winning Nell, Jeanette Baker has been hailed by Publishers Weekly as a forceful writer whose novels are "irresistible reading." Jeanette lives in California during the winter months where she teaches literature and writing, and in County Kerry, Ireland during the summer.