A Nameless Witch

This is the first book I've read by A. Lee Martinez, so I couldn't tell if some of the content of the book was intended to be referential. In any case, I don't think it matters too much.

This moderately humorous novel is about a young woman, cursed to be one of the undead since birth, who is taken from her family by a horrible old witch. Given, since her family was keeping her prisoner in the basement, this is actually an improvement. The witch wants to train the young lady as her successor, but the older woman is dissapointed because her acquisition is far too pretty to be a witch. It seems the young lady is cursed to be one of those undead that lures men into bed with irresistable visions of carnality and then devours them.

Then the witch is killed rather horribly. The rest of the novel is the young undead witch's journey to Find Herself, which the author does acknowledge is a fantasy cliche so it's not as bad as it might have been. She encounters humans, likes them, and finds she also has an unfortunate desire to eat them. This isn't so bad until she meets the White Knight and discovers herself nearly paralyzed by her conflicting desires.

I think the novel is meant to be quite funny, unfortunately I found most of the humorous elements fell flat. Note to authors: just because something is egregiously weird does not, in and of itself, make it funny. A duck that is inhabited by a bloodthirsty demon is not inherently amusing. There has to be another aspect to the joke. This may be an application of Scott Adams' "two of six" rule.

The story is cute and enjoyable, and has a simple theme: an imperfect reality is better than a perfect illusion. The frequent references to cannibalism are a little stomach-turning, though, and kills the romantic fantasy just a wee bit. Overall I give it a thumbs-up.

Rating: 3.0