Taylor Levesque's Reviews > Black Magic: A Tale of the Rise and Fall of the Antichrist

Set in a medieval setting, two friends venture into the curiosities of the black arts. This Gothic novel as such delves into the world of the occult, witches, ghosts, and magic itself. Not to mention, of course, pacts with the Devil. Avoiding spoilers though, this book was certainly published before its time when taking a good look at the themes involved. Certainly not a bad thing at all, and it was actually very nice to see. It was simply surprising. Anyway…

Anyone who has been following my reading tendencies lately will know that I have been very much into magic, witches, and darker themes. Horror, Gothic, magic, middle ages, on top of everything else involved here? Of course a book like this would have my attention. Reading through more of the reviews, it seemed even more promising. So many readers raved about the excellence of this novel, talks of how wonderfully dark the story itself is… How could I say no to all this? It all sounded like it was right up my alley!

I got through about the first quarter of this book before I gave up on it and had to put it down. I’m not sure if it was the narrative, the dialogue, flow, or something else, but it just wasn’t holding my attention. It was disappointing because I was definitely pulled in by the premise, but I just couldn’t keep reading it. I hate to say this, but I was unfortunately a bit bored. It just couldn’t hold my interest. It sucks because I thought the rise and fall of the Antichrist would be right up my alley.

I will say, however, that I enjoyed the description of setting and the characters involved for the amount I got through, at least. There was also the use of very old speech and slang that was a nice touch, even if it was sometimes a little bit too much. It had a nice dark and Gothic feel to it as well.

Although I wasn’t the biggest fan of this particular story, I may give this author another chance in the future.