Ostara Night: Death of a Coven

James R. Snedden
Publish America (2006)
ISBN 1424120950
Reviewed by Jennifer Woodard for Reader Views (6/06)

Nine members of the Coven of the Earth Mother are found dead. The police have ruled the case a mass suicide by a bunch of crazy witches.

Jeremy Dawkins, a reporter for Crime Magazine, has been asked by his publisher to go out to the desert and look into the deaths of the coven members and see if there’s a story to be told. Jeremy leaves his comfortable life in California to head to the Sonora Desert of Arizona to delve into the lives and practices of witches.

At first Jeremy doesn’t think there is much of a story to be told. When he arrives at the covenstead, an old farm, it looks as if the coven members have all decided to drink poison. He feels that the police may have tagged it correctly as mass suicide of a cult. The problem is, Wicca’s don’t believe in suicide and the police can’t figure out how the poison arrived at the covenstead and what happened to the container the poison must have been carried in.

Jeremy wants to know, if they poisoned themselves, how did they do it? Where is the container? And if it’s murder, who would want nine people dead?

Jeremy begins his search to answer questions about the crime and the members of the coven. He learns a great deal about witches and Wicca from a local High Priestess, and you the reader, gets to learn some basics of Wicca. The author does a good job of showing the characters as witches, but not the type of witches that the media normally portrays. Being a practicing pagan, I am curious as to how accurate the information would be. I was pleasantly surprised that I had very few disagreements with some of his information. I was very pleased that he portrayed Wiccan’s as everyday people with everyday problems.

This book is easy to read and enjoyable. I enjoyed going on the ride with Jeremy as he delved into the lives of the people in this small town in the desert. I also enjoyed the mixture of cultures and religions that he introduced into the novel, he did a great job of blending them yet showing that there is friction among differences. I am looking forward to the development of the Jeremy Dawkins character in future novels.

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