Demon Witch: Book 2 of the Ravenscliff Series
Geoffrey Huntington
ReganBooks, 276 pages
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In the first volume of this continuing series, young Devon March came
to live with the Crandall family at Ravenscliff, a brooding mansion on a
storm-lashed shore, and discovered his heritage as one of the noble Order
of the Nightwing, an ancient line of sorcerers whose duty is to protect
humankind from evil and keep at bay the bloodthirsty demons who would otherwise
escape from their hideous Hellholes and overrun the earth. The Crandalls,
also Nightwing, renounced their powers long ago. So when the ghost of a renegade
Nightwing known as Madman Jackson Muir opened the gigantic Hellhole that
Ravenscliff was built to guard, it was up to Devon to banish him and his
demons back to the depths.
After that adventure, Devon is longing for some quiet time to find out
more about Nightwing traditions (into which he was never initiated as a child,
as most Nightwing are) and investigate some of the mysteries at Ravenscliff,
such as how he is (or isn’t) related to the Crandalls and whether or not
one of the towers is haunted. But life is never quiet for a sorcerer of the
Nightwing. A new caretaker has arrived, and there’s something very odd about
him--quite apart from the fact that he’s a 600-year-old gnome. A long-absent
member of the Crandall family unexpectedly returns, with a lovely young fiancée
about whom Devon (and all the other males who encounter her) begins having
disturbing, sensual dreams. Devon starts to see terrifying visions of Ravenscliff’s
Hellhole, open by his hand...and of a mysterious, malevolent sorceress called
Isobel the Apostate. Isobel was defeated by her fellow Nightwing and burned
at the stake in 1522, but there’s reason to believe she survived her burning,
and has been waiting ever since for the right moment to return. Once again, despite his lack of knowledge and training, Devon
must fill a Nightwing’s role, at deadly danger to himself and those around
him--and to the world itself, for if Isobel wins, all the demons of Hell
will be set free.
Huntington delivers more of the entertaining gothic horror/supernatural
action mix that enlivened the first volume of the series, with plenty of
kickass demon-battling and another scary foe to test Devon and his emerging
powers to the max. Devon must struggle also with a less tangible enemy: his
own ambivalence about his Nightwing heritage, a role for which his upbringing
hasn’t prepared him at all. Poignantly, he longs for a normal life (Huntington
does a good job of contrasting the extravagant supernatural goings-on at
Ravenscliff with the mundane world of school and friends and ordinary teenage
activities), and works to overcome his fear--fear being the only thing that
can weaken a sorcerer of the Nightwing. Once again, in the final confrontation,
victory means not just defeating the villain, but conquering his own weakness.
Enjoyable as this is, however, it’s a bit too much like what has gone
before. One of the things good series for young readers have in common is
their authors’ ability to balance the comforting familiarity of the series’
basic structure with the excitement of brand-new material--and also, if there’s
a larger storyline, to produce a sense that it’s moving along. But despite
a different setup, Demon Witch follows pretty much the same template as Sorcerers of the Nightwing:
similar stakes, similar perils, similar action, even a similar plot structure--the
return of a supposedly-dead renegade Nightwing who wants to harness the dark
power of Ravenscliff’s Hellhole and challenges Devon both directly and through
his/her hidden presence in a member of the household (this, actually, is
one of the things that’s least-effectively handled: the minute Isobel shows
up in disguise, you know exactly who she is). And while Devon does learn
something important about his background, and a bit more light is shed on
the Crandall family, these revelations don’t feel all that significant, given
that the pressing questions that were raised in Book 1 (mostly, the truth
of Devon’s parentage and why he was brought up without knowledge of his heritage)
remain just as unanswered at the end of Book 2. Nor, despite an awkward time
travel sequence that takes Devon to Tudor England, do we get much more insight
into the Order of the Nightwing.
On its face, Demon Witch is an entertaining, spooky adventure;
as a series installment, it’s less satisfactory. Book 3 will need to move
forward more vigorously, and give Devon some new directions to follow, if
this series is to maintain reader interest.
Copyright © 2003 Victoria Strauss
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