Author James Reese

Don't expect the usual ghost and goblin story; this is not "Harry Potter." This one is definitely for adults only.

Tampa author James Reese has delivered the second in a planned trilogy—equal parts fantasy, mystery, ghost story, history, physics, philosophy and travelogue—extensively researched, intense and always colorful.

"The Book of Spirits" follows Reese's acclaimed first gothic novel, "The Book of Shadows," published in 2002, and continues Herculine's journal, begun during her bizarre and violent childhood in France. In 1826, the teenager sails to the United States and into a series of highly unusual adventures, any one of which would make a mighty fine novel.

Oh, did we mention Herculine is a hermaphrodite witch who can commune with the dead? Herculine's dual gender provides access to double the life experiences, and Reese provides a grand variety.

As she travels the East Coast, working her way into historical events "entombed in strangeness," Herculine invades our consciousness, a sympathetic character from another dimension.

Crossing the Atlantic as a man, Herculine notices a beautiful slave girl named Celia, used and abused by her sickly, wealthy owner. She is appalled by the treatment of the girl and by a society "wherein people are the most valuable property of other people." Celia will be Herculine's obsession from Page 1.

Landing in Virginia, she finds lodging in Richmond in a large house occupied by the reclusive Mammy Venus, who watches over the Poe children, Rosalie and Edgar Allan, "Richmond's Collegian and Poet." The skeletal ghost of the children's mother, former actress Eliza Arnold, haunts the house and returns demanding news of her children and sharing her post-life story with Herculine. "I heard her native England in her diction, and smelled Hell on her breath."

Herculine eventually helps Celia escape to St. Augustine in the Florida territory, rumored to be a haven for slaves sheltered by Spaniards and Indians. She desperately lusts for Celia and casts a spell on the slave, a mistake that will change them both forever.

In Florida, Herculine becomes physically drained "quieting the dead" spirits of 200 massacred French Huguenots still pleading for their lives on the Matanzan sands. "Of all witchly traits, I suffer the strangest: I am death-allied."

Confused and uncertain about her future, she is directed to a Manhattan brothel run by "the Duchess" and full of comely witches who refine her "education." Here she learns the difference between love and lust.

Back in Florida, her search for Celia puts her in great danger and involves her in Florida legend and history, from the elusive Fountain of Youth to the Second Seminole War.

In "The Book of Spirits," Herculine's uncommon life allies her not only with the spirits of the "unquiet dead," but also with the spirit and struggles of an emerging nation.
—Tampa Tribune

Here's a review posted on a website equally cool and creepy.
Beware: SPOILERS.