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Marilyn Messik
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Witch Dust: A Paranormal Comedy Thriller (Witch Series Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Marilyn Messik (Author), Satin Publishing (Editor) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 322 ratings
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For Sandra, daughter of illusionists, Adam and Ophelia, life’s never been run of the mill! But when Adam’s wandering eye lights on yet another conquest, Sandra’s caught in the reverberations of her parents acrimonious parting. Coerced into restoring her depressed Mother to the bosom of a family Sandra never knew existed, she’s sucked into a situation that even for her is unnerving.


From being without a single relative, she suddenly acquires several she’d rather do without. Ophelia, it appears, has not been entirely honest about any number of things. There’s no doubt in Sandra’s mind, the sooner she puts as much distance as possible between herself, the newly discovered nearest and dearest with their peculiar tendencies and failing hotel business, the happier she’s going to b.

There are just a few things to sort first including a possessed chef; a hanged housemaid; a fly-on-the-wall documentary and a doppelgänger. Things slide swiftly from bad to farce and then get a hell of a lot darker. One minute she’s saving the family business the next, battling to save their lives. Turns out, some darknesses, once buried, are best left undisturbed.

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  1. Book 1 of 1
    Witch Series
  2. Print length
    264 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publication date
    12 Jan. 2020
  5. File size
    1.3 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Product description

About the Author

Marilyn Messik was a feature and fiction writer for magazines (Annabelle, She, Mother & Baby, Women's Weekly, Telegraph Online, etc). Her first business was a children's book and party shop. She subsequently moved into travel, researching and rating American country inns and publishing an annual full colour guide. She currently runs a copywriting consultancy, helping businesses and organisations plan, shape and optimise communication. Marilyn lives in Watford, Herts and is the author of 'Relatively Strange' (9781783061914) and 'Even Stranger'(9781785891960). Her writing style has been described as a cross between Stephen King and Maureen Lipman although, as she points out, she's really not sure either of them would be remotely thrilled to hear that!

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B083SM7L36
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Satin Publishing (12 Jan. 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1.3 MB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 264 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1659586240
  • Customer reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 322 ratings

About the author

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Marilyn Messik

Marilyn Messik

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Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

In Brief

• Personal: Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Book Lover, Housework Hater.

• Professional: Copywriter. Business Blaster, Author, Speaker.

• Default Setting: Mild Hysteria.

Bit More

When my children were small, I wrote features and fiction for various national magazines, was a columnist for Mother & Baby and set up a home-based business supplying children’s party goods. I also decided to train as an ante-natal teacher. I thought all was going well until the husband said if he opened one more cupboard and had several packs of Mr Men plates land on his head, he was leaving!

Tough choice - but I opted for the husband and opened a shop, possibly the only one where impatient customers were told to breathe in short pants and not push. When I sold the shop, I set up a booking and planning service, for off-the-beaten-track trips, to New England, USA. With the growth of the service, to make information easily available, I published an annual guide which ran until I sold the business to a FTSE 100 company.

I went on to dip a toe into the vintage world with antique children’s books and vintage postcards. Problem was that once started, I couldn’t stop and spent lots of time ferreting in cobwebbed attics or scraping the bottoms of boxes in garage sales. That was how the Vintage Ladies books came about.

Currently, I run a copywriting consultancy, write fiction and features, have blogged for The Telegraph Online, written four Paranormal Thrillers and four Business Books (taking care not to mix up the last two!)

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
322 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the characters vivid and memorable. They describe the book as an excellent read with witty language and a level of humor that is dark and subtle.

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Character developmentReadabilityLanguage quality
4 customers mention ‘Character development’4 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the well-developed characters. They find them colorful, eccentric, and magical. The plot is engaging around these memorable characters.

"...I loved the humour and full on colourful eccentric and magical characters that just filled my mind...." Read more

"...The characters are loveable and loathsome in equal measure, depending on their role within the plot, each quickly built into a personality you can..." Read more

"Very well written. Great plot winding round memorable characters. Unexpected magical happenings, and I personally would love a sequel...." Read more

"...Definitely want to read the next one. Like the different characters & I am expecting them to develop & more information about them to appear." Read more

4 customers mention ‘Readability’4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and a good holiday read.

"...What a super book this is. I loved the humour and full on colourful eccentric and magical characters that just filled my mind...." Read more

"...Excellent reading." Read more

"Great holiday read..." Read more

"Great book!..." Read more

3 customers mention ‘Language quality’3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the witty language and well-written prose. They find the humor dark and subtle, with a deft hand.

"...The authors deft hand also maintains a level of humour, often dark, sometimes subtle, but always with the power to have you giggling from beginning..." Read more

"Witch Dust was every bit as well written and meticulously constructed as Marilyn's first two (wonderful) books and though I thought I'd miss Stella,..." Read more

"Very well written. Great plot winding round memorable characters. Unexpected magical happenings, and I personally would love a sequel...." Read more

Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Susan Hampson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Pure magic
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 September 2017
    Verified Purchase
    This is such a lovely good feel and 100% fun book to read with a sprinkle of darkness thrown in too, I just loved it. Every child wants a bit of magic in their lives but when you are surrounded by it I suppose it becomes just every day normal. Adam and Ophelia were illusionists at the top of their game so their daughter Sandra was more than use to seeing dad throw knives at her mum. Sandra, now grown up, noticed that at times odd things happened that no one else seemed to pick up on, a little sort of jump in time, just for a split second when she thought a knife or such was heading towards her mum rather than just missing. If she ever questioned it people always seemed to dodge the answer.
    After a fallout between her mum and dad, Ophelia takes Sandra with her to visit relatives that she had been told simply didn’t exist and what starts as a visit to this failing family hotel of the most bizarre people you could meet just made me want to book in. Sandra always yearned for more family but these people are not like, to put it bluntly, normal. What begins as a visit turns into something much more.
    What a super book this is. I loved the humour and full on colourful eccentric and magical characters that just filled my mind. Such a lot of people but each one having their own quirkiness and abilities that they were all so easy to remember. The story is told by Sandra, which I loved as when she was shocked, angry or just simply funny then that was what I felt. It was like we were discovering everything together with never a dull moment. What Sandra had found shocking to start with soon becomes her new normal. The chapters are a nice length to give you a chunk of the story but short enough to get a quick chapter in too with a coffee break. It is all a visual reading experience. Just pure magic!
    One person found this helpful
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  • L. Presley
    4.0 out of 5 stars Great Read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 February 2023
    The daughter of spotlight hungry illusionists Adam and Ophelia (and having a bit of an idea there's some 'funny stuff' going on when it comes to her mother), Sandy strives for a much more normal life. When her father strays with another woman, helping her mother leads to meeting the rather large and rather unusual family of Ophelia's - a family Sandy had no idea existed. Not really wanting any part of yet more oddness, Sandy is reluctantly roped into helping get the family's failing hotel business on track. But Sandy's introduction into the family fold has darker consequences than she could have known, and she may be more a part of the family than she realised, whether she wants to be or not.
    A great story with an engaging conversational tone, plenty of humour and a fair bit of supernatural drama.
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  • Eve-Vee
    5.0 out of 5 stars Like the Strange series
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 June 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Once again Marilyn Messik has left me speechless with her skilful story telling. Like the Strange series, Witch Dust quickly pulls you into the story and characters and doesn't let you go until the very last word - even at that point you really don't want to leave this fantasy world; a world carefully created to intertwine with apparently normal, every day life. The characters are loveable and loathsome in equal measure, depending on their role within the plot, each quickly built into a personality you can easily recognise. The authors deft hand also maintains a level of humour, often dark, sometimes subtle, but always with the power to have you giggling from beginning to end. I really don't want to give too much of the plot away, but it is an absolute must for any fantasy/paranormal/witchcraft fans who like a bit of a giggle when fighting with the demons of other worlds, and indeed of this one. Highly recommended for everyone, but if you are a Pratchett or Gaimen fan, this will be right up your street.
    One person found this helpful
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  • A. Phillips
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great holiday read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 August 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Witch Dust was every bit as well written and meticulously constructed as Marilyn's first two (wonderful) books and though I thought I'd miss Stella, Serenissina (aka Sandra) was an equally interesting & feisty female role model. The book made me laugh with the witty use of language, cringe with some of the gruesome goings on and kept me gripped throughout its roller coaster storyline with me wishing, more than once, that I could manage to find some witchy ancestors of my own! Can't wait for the next one -keep writing Marilyn!""
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  • scoobs66
    3.0 out of 5 stars You meet your family for the first time, and what a family!!!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 February 2020
    I have never read any of Marilyn's books before so this was totally a blank canvas for me. As such I did not know whether to look at as a comedy or horror or .......and I think that was the basic problem for me. My perception of the main heroine kept jumping around, in some scenes she seemed like a child then later she was organising the whole family and I couldn't quite reconcile who she was in relation to the other characters. The book was however easy to read even with the vast numbers of individuals who crop up throughout the story. I read in a couple of sittings and usually when this happens and there are lots of characters I would have to backtrack to keep track but not in this book as Maralyn has traced the family and peripheral characters as very clear individuals, if not very odd. The only reason I did not give 4 stars was down to the ending which was building up very nicely to a fantastic/scary climax but I did feel it petered out a little. But this is maybe because this is the beginning of a series and not the end of a standalone book? Nevertheless an enjoyable read
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  • Gerry Barnes
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and magic
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 October 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Very well written. Great plot winding round memorable characters. Unexpected magical happenings, and I personally would love a sequel. Excellent reading.
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  • Patricia Margaret Allan
    4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 July 2023
    Good storyline, well written characters - fun read.
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  • Becky F.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 January 2021
    Verified Purchase
    I enjoyed this - kept wanting a bit more!
    Definitely want to read the next one.
    Like the different characters & I am expecting them to develop & more information about them to appear.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Finding her family
    Reviewed in the United States on 6 July 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Sandy knew her mother could do things. Her mom had said she didn't have any family. Then her dad got involved with a younger woman, and mom suddenly had a family to run to. Sandy discovered her odd, gifted relatives, and tried to help them improve the dusty old hotel they were living in. Funny, paranormal but almost normal. Crazy farce. Good read
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  • Kindle Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars A different take on witches
    Reviewed in the United States on 17 May 2021
    Verified Purchase
    This is a wonderful book full of quirky characters and odd magic. The story involves a main character facing what she is and who she is, as she deals with the drama of her parents' imploding relationship. She has pointedly ignored her mother's ability to do things for years, but now she has to face that, and a horde of relatives that she never knew existed.
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  • karen curtis
    4.0 out of 5 stars Rollicking fun and surprises on every chapter.
    Reviewed in Canada on 8 January 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Unique storyline, crazy cast of characters, with just a hint of evil and good clashing .Treated the family dynamic with insight and humour.
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  • Marie Gibson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
    Reviewed in the United States on 24 May 2022
    Verified Purchase
    A witch finds her family and her magic in this very well written and put together story. I was mesmerized from the first word to the last!
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  • L. Claire
    3.0 out of 5 stars Grammar? Ouch!
    Reviewed in the United States on 8 July 2021
    Verified Purchase
    I found it odd that there were so *many* grammatical errors. Most of them have to do with misplaced commas -- added where they didn't belong and not used when really needed. I found myself going back many times to try to figure out what the author was trying to say. Then -- the run-on sentences! I appreciated the story, but would not read other books from this author based on all this. Too bad, because those corrections would make it a smooth and enjoyable read for those who like grammar.
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