Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always loved fantasy. My mother told me fairy stories and I read every book of myth and legend in my local library. I’ve continued to read and love books of fantasy and magic. I guess it’s not surprising that all four of my novels and most of my short stories have a speculative aspect to them. Having grown up with the traditional view of the aged, ugly crone luring children away to their doom, I especially love stories of witches that come at the topic of witchcraft from a different angle. I live in the East of England, where the infamous witch-hunts of the seventeenth century took place.


I wrote

Witchlight

By J.S. Watts,

Book cover of Witchlight

What is my book about?

"Witchlight", a paranormal novel by J.S.Watts - the first novel in the popular Witchlight series.

Holly has been mortal all…

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

The books I picked & why

Book cover of Wyrd Sisters

J.S. Watts Why did I love this book?

I love Terry Pratchett’s writing: the humour, the bite, the insightfulness. Wyrd Sisters is the sixth novel in his wonderful Discworld fantasy series and returns us to the doings of the three witches: Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick. Any references to Shakespeare’s Macbeth witches or the traditional trilogy of crone, mother, and maiden are purely intentional. Granny Weatherwax with her dry and dour outlook on life, her wisdom, and the power she downplays as little more than “headology” is one of my favourite Discworld characters. At least one of the books about Witchery that I recommend has to have her in it. This is it.

By Terry Pratchett,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Wyrd Sisters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Destiny is important, see, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. It's the other way around.'

Three witches gathered on a lonely heath. A king cruelly murdered, his throne usurped by his ambitious cousin. A child heir and the royal crown, both missing.

Witches don't have these kinds of leadership problems themselves - in fact, they don't have leaders.

Granny Weatherwax is the most highly regarded of the leaders they don't have. But even she finds that meddling in royal politics is a lot more complicated than certain playwrights would have you believe. Particularly when the blood…


Book cover of Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy

J.S. Watts Why did I love this book?

If you mention witches, most people think fantasy novels, but this is a factual history about the real life witch-hunts that took place across the East of England in the 17th Century. It unpicks the brutal and most likely self-serving crusade of the original Witchfinder General, Mathew Hopkins and the religious hysteria of the time. It is a worthy counterbalance to classic horror films such as Witchfinder General and to all the varied and imaginative fiction that has been written about witches and witchery over the centuries, my own included.

By Malcolm Gaskill,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Witchfinders as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

By spring 1645, two years of civil war had exacted a dreadful toll upon England. People lived in terror as disease and poverty spread, and the nation grew ever more politically divided. In a remote corner of Essex, two obscure gentlemen, Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne, exploited the anxiety and lawlessness of the time and initiated a brutal campaign to drive out the presumed evil in their midst. Touring Suffolk and East Anglia on horseback, they detected demons and idolators everywhere. Through torture, they extracted from terrified prisoners confessions of consorting with Satan and demonic spirits.

Acclaimed historian Malcolm Gaskill…


Book cover of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

J.S. Watts Why did I love this book?

I adore the way Alan Garner weaves myth and folklore into stories of the everyday world. If I could write as well as him, I’d be one very happy writer. It therefore goes without saying that I had to choose one of his books. The Weirdstone is a fantasy novel for children, but I enjoy his children’s books as much as his adult novels. This was the first book of Garner’s that I read and though he has since fallen out of love with it, I haven’t. The witches of the morthbrood are on the side of darkness in this tale. Two children, Colin and Susan, have to protect the small jewel in Susan’s bracelet, which, unknown to her, is the Weirdstone, against the powers of darkness who want it for themselves. 

By Alan Garner,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Weirdstone of Brisingamen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is one of the greatest fantasy novels of all time.

"Alan Garner's fiction is something special." - Neil Gaiman

When Colin and Susan are pursued by eerie creatures across Alderley Edge, they are saved by the Wizard. He takes them into the caves of Fundindelve, where he watches over the enchanted sleep of one hundred and forty knights.

But the heart of the magic that binds them - Firefrost, also known as the Weirdstone of Brisingamen - has been lost. The Wizard has been searching for the stone for more than 100 years, but the forces…


Book cover of Damiano

J.S. Watts Why did I love this book?

The first in a trilogy of books of magical fantasy set in Renaissance Europe and beyond that looks at magic and witchery at an unusual slant. Centre stage is Damiano Delstrego: son of a wizard and alchemist with an inheritance of Dark Magics. Forced out by war, he goes on pilgrimage to seek the aid of the powerful witch Saara, but the road he is obliged to walk is a dark one. R. A. MacAvoy is another writer I have admired for a long time and I was very sad when ill health stopped her from writing. I believe, however, that she has started to write again, so I can but hope for new novels while recommending her older, skillful work.

By R.A. MacAvoy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Damiano as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This alternate history fantasy by a Nebula Award nominee follows a young alchemist's quest in Renaissance Italy under the wing of an archangel.

Set against the turbulent backdrop of the Italian Renaissance, this alternate history takes place in a world where real faith-based magic exists. Our hero is Damiano Dalstrego. He is a wizard's son, an alchemist, and the heir to dark magics. But he is also an innocent, a young scholar and musician befriended by the Archangel Raphael, who instructs him in the lute. To save his beloved city from war, Damiano leaves his cloistered life and sets out…


Book cover of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

J.S. Watts Why did I love this book?

The first novel in the Harry Potter Series. The one in which Harry discovers he’s a wizard and goes to Hogwarts for the first time. Perhaps it is a bit obvious, but with Hermione Granger labeled as the cleverest and brightest witch of her generation, I couldn’t pass it by. This is another book written for children but read by adults and children alike. I read the whole series as an adult and was hooked. Younger readers have come of age reading Harry Potter and the book has generated a rich fantasy world in print, on film, and in the minds of its many fans.

By J.K. Rowling,

Why should I read it?

41 authors picked Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Galloping gargoyles ... 2022 is the silver anniversary of J.K. Rowling's magical classic Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone!

The boy wizard Harry Potter has been casting a spell over young readers and their families ever since 1997. Now the first book in this unmissable series celebrates 25 years in print! The paperback edition of the tale that introduced us to Harry, Ron and Hermione has been updated and dressed in silver to mark the occasion. It's time to take the magical journey of a lifetime ...

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping…


Explore my book 😀

Witchlight

By J.S. Watts,

Book cover of Witchlight

What is my book about?

"Witchlight", a paranormal novel by J.S.Watts - the first novel in the popular Witchlight series.

Holly has been mortal all her life. Now at thirty-eight, her fairy godfather arrives to tell her she’s a witch, and suddenly she's having to come to terms with the uncertainties of an alarmingly magic-fuelled world. Magic is not like it is in the books and films, and Holly starts to doubt whether her fairy godfather, Partridge Mayflower, is the fey, avuncular charmer he appears.

When appearances are magically deceptive, Holly cannot afford to trust those closest to her, including herself. Accidents start to happen, people die, Old Magic is on the hunt, but in the age-old game of cat and mouse, just who is the feline and who is the rodent?

You might also like...

Girl of Light

By Elana Gomel,

Book cover of Girl of Light

Elana Gomel Author Of Nine Levels

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Elana's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

A girl of Light in a world of darkness.

In Svetlana's country, it’s a felony to break a mirror. Mirrors are conduits of the Voice, the deity worshiped by all who follow Light. The Voice protects humans of MotherLand from the dangers that beset them on all sides: an invading army of wolf-headed men on their borders and the infectious, ever-evolving, zombie-like Enemy that plagues them at home. When Svetlana meets Andrei, a traumatized and amnesiac soldier from another war, she embarks on a harrowing journey of adventure and self-discovery that leads her to question everything she was taught to…

Girl of Light

By Elana Gomel,

What is this book about?

A voice through Svetlana's mirror guides her beloved MotherLand from behind its' electric tower. The war with Wulfstan is not going as well as Sveta and her parents hope, but Sveta trusts the Voice. When her best friend Tattie goes missing, and Sveta saves Andrei, a soldier in summer uniform in the dead of winter, it takes Sveta through a crucible of Light, doubt, and back to the altar of true belief. Girl of Light unravels Sveta's beloved MotherLand in a war-torn adventure through monsters, missing eyes and broken mirrors.

Girl of Light is a dark fantasy with a Slavic…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in good and evil, wizards, and witches?

Good And Evil 143 books
Wizards 98 books
Witches 142 books