Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

  (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2014), ISBN: 978-0-8117-1115-9 It’s always a pleasure to read and review a new Rosemary Ellen Guiley book. Not only are they based on interviews and fieldwork coupled with a thorough review of secondary sources; I have also had the privilege of accompanying her on several paranormal investigations, including on the three acres on which I live. Some of the experiences of my family have been chronicled in other of her books (e.g., on Ouija boards), and in this book on West Virginia hauntings, there’s a segment about the arts center my wife and I used to run.             These personal connections aside, as an author who often uses the supernatural in my stories, novels, and plays, my growing collection of Guiley’s books is an indispensible part of my research library.             The Big Book of West Virginia Ghost Stories , broke...

 (2013, Homebound Publications, ISBN: 978-1-938846-11-3) In 2009 I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing the first novel in the New Dimensions Trilogy, Journey to the Heart . Like her main character’s spiritual journey, Nora Caron’s journey as a writer is steadily developing, and I gleaned even more from the follow-up than I did from the original. In Mexico for about a year, Lucina, a Canadian transplant trying to find herself and break from the dysfunctional habits that had so limited her life, is living with Teleo, the medicine man from Journey to the Heart , who is the son of the old wise woman, Señora Labotta. Lucina, although progressing in her journey, is far from over her acerbic, sarcastic tendencies, and even in this new world of spirit and oneness, when in crisis [which is often] she falls back to the advice of her more traditionally based former therapist, Dr. Field. Themes like spirit and matter, love and loss, and life and death course through the ...