No one appreciates the irony of her situation more than Raven Kane: she’s a burnt-out witch. Raven is a hip, hexing-and-texting sorceress – or at least, she used to be. Now her ancient timber house is falling down around her, and the bank wants to repossess it. Nothing would make her cantankerous neighbour happier than seeing Raven and her messy menagerie out on the street.

To add to her stress, the reckless Wicked Witches are causing mischief and it’s her job to reign them in. Worst of all is that her magic seems to be fading. Just as everything seems to be too much to handle, there’s a knock on the (splintering) door. A not-unattractive man appears in her life: not to save her, as a fairytale would have you believe, but to arrest her for the murder of one of her clients. It wouldn’t be that bad for Raven, except that she knows she’s guilty.

Raven Kane is a modern day witch. She’s not an evil black witch, nor does she use her abilities only for good. She is a combination of the two. She is a grey witch.

When her beloved home is on the verge of being repossessed by the bank, Raven goes against her own rules and uses her power to obtain money, to pay the bank off. However, she knows that there will be consequences for using her powers for her own gain. The consequences start when she receives a knock at her door by a detective telling her she is under arrest for murder.

But how can you begin to prove your innocence when you are not actually innocent?

This combined with the local community trying to rid her and her ‘evil’ from their town. A burning attraction to the lead detective, her sister wanting nothing to do with her, the deceased man’s son trying to take his revenge, her magic failing, the local wicked witches causing mayhem, trying to write a book that’s only taken her 15 years, oh and her past life’s threatening her present one. Life is going swimmingly for her!

Grey Magic is a fun, exciting book, that I found impossible to put down. The plot of a grey witch, living in modern day South Africa is certainly unique.

Raven is a wonderful character. She is energetic, fun, quirky and interesting, as well as mixed up, emotional, constantly tired and sensitive. Some of the ways that she dealt with magical requests made me wonder if she really was a witch though, such as the pregnancy scene.

JT Lawrence’s writing is outstanding. She writes in such a way that she hooks you to the pages and has you doing that ‘just one more page’ over and over again. The use of modern day technology being used by a witch, alongside making Raven as normal as you could possibly get, bring this book bang up to date and will have people connecting with the story.

I found the physical attraction between the detective, Captain Kruger, and herself amusing. You could clearly tell that they both wanted each other, but how can a lead detective on a murder case, have a relationship with the murder suspect? And can they fight their attraction to one another?

I also laughed out loud numerous times to Ravens inner voice, which she would have full blown conversations, okay mostly arguments, with.

I will admit that there was a section of the book that I did find less appealing than the rest, the past life regression session. There was just something about this bit of the plot that I found myself glossing over. I get that to understand why Raven is having a major issue in the present, we had to visit her past, but I wasn’t overly keen on the scenes from the past.

Overall Grey Magic had me pining for more, and I wonder if we will hear more from Raven Kane, as she really is a character that you hope to spend more time with.

JT Lawrence is an author, playwright and bookdealer based in Parkhurst, Johannesburg. She is the mother of two small boys and a baby girl, and lives in a house with a red front door.

Her first novel, ‘The Memory of Water’ (2011), is about a writer who would do anything for a story. It’s an Amazon bestseller with over 20,000 downloads. Her 2015 offering, ‘Why You Were Taken’, is a pre-dystopian sci-fi thriller starring a synaesthete, and takes place in a futuristic Jo’burg burdened by infertility and a water crisis. It was optioned by the national broadcaster and the much anticipated sequel, ‘How We Found You’, is currently in the works.

JT has written various plays for SAFM including ‘The Shelter’, ‘Unspilling the Milk’, ‘Every Breath You Take’, and serials, the most recent being the crime drama ‘Jigsaw’. Her short story collection ‘Sticky Fingers’ was broadcast in the last quarter of 2015, and is now available as a paperback and ebook.

Her humorous memoir, ‘The Underachieving Ovary’, was released in September 2016.

‘Grey Magic’ is her latest novel. It’s about an eccentric modern-day witch, accused of murder, who must explore her past lives in order to keep her freedom — and find her way back to magic.

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