Supernatural: Witch's Canyon (Supernatural Series, 2)

This one packed with action, mystery and death. It is not for the faint of heart. Usually I don't like gory detail, anything that can reminece of horror, so this book I should hate. But I loved it from beginning to end. Such a massive supernatural event that Sam and Dean needs to figure out and stop. Was really fun read, I did think this was better than the first book.

I've recently become a convert of the show Supernatural, and have watched the complete series twice within the last two months. Even this has not been enough to satisfy my addiction, and I've turned to the books to help tide me over for when I can't watch the Winchester boys onscreen. The first novel, written by Keith R.A. Decandido, was alright, and I soon moved on to the second, the subject of this review. I've since read the third, also by Decandido, skipped the fourth (it's not even about Sam and Dean but about Samuel and John), again by Decandido, and am now just starting the fifth (by Joe Schrieber).Of the five books, I most wholeheartedly and unreservedly recommend Witch's Canyon by Jeff Mariotte. He gets Sam and Dean exactly right. His portrayal of their personalities, their interactions, their routines - all flawless. Reading the book, it FEELS like an episode of the show, right down to the description of Baby's rumbling growl, their skeezy motel room, the generics of small town America, and Dean's ceaseless flirting.There's also the plot of this book to recommend it. It is unpredictable, and had me guessing to the end. It has moments that are downright scary, which is of course what any fan of Supernatural really wants. Scary and sexy and family and funny, all in the right amounts, and Mariotte nails it bang on.Fans of Supernatural- buy this book! Don't waste your time on Decandido. He does ok, but Mariotte is a master, and reading books 1, 3, and 4 will only disappoint you. Mariotte understands and imbues his story with that certain Supernatural /je ne sais quoi/ that Decandido does not. Leave the others and feast on Witch's Canyon. You will love it; I absolutely guarantee it.

It needed the episodes to know where it is, but overall, it wasn’t a bad read. I’d recommend it

Prologue: Begins Forty years in the past with a small child seeing a chilling ghost. Like the kid, his thought-patterns and the ghost is suitably creepy. So far so good.Chapter One: Much better writing in this book. No huge infodumping of back story. What is there is woven in without being jarring. Descriptions use a range of senses. The boys' voices sound like them. They are in Arizona since they got a tip from the cop they met in Nevermore. A slew of supernatural seeming murders go rampant every forty years.There's a funky characterization of the boys though: Dean, having worked with Dad longer, was used to taking orders. More than that, he seemed to thrive on it, as if Dad had crushed the independent spirit he'd been born with. What was left behind was a Dean who Sam bossed around whether he meant to or not.Um, that's uh, never how I saw the boys. Could be just a matter of opinion thing. Idk.Weird. Especially since Dean's voice and mannerisms aren't written to comply with this random statement. His character so far is reflecting the spunky un-bossed around Dean we all know and love from the show.The mystery is of the supernatural variety, a bit gory, and even though we know there are ghosts and some sort of monster involved, we don't know how or why. The boys characters are in sync with how they are and act and speak on the show and the back story that has been seeded in hasn't been too much and fits what is going on. I'm on page 100 and haven't been bored yet.Dean have an awesome fight with several ghosties. Big clue about what might be going on is revealed.I love it when I don't guess the ending, yet in hindsight it still totally fits with all the clues. Sam and Dean split up to take on different tasks. The concern over not being there as back up for each other was given some momentary worry. The chapters flipped back and forth as both boys separately take on some major whumpage. Gotta love that. For a second, Sam was up to his eyeballs and I seriously didn't know how he was going to get out of that.All in all, I liked this book. The writing flowed really well, the back story wasn't intrusive. Descriptions well-placed and sensory. I could tell this writer actually watched the show as except for that one random comment I pointed out earlier, the boys stayed in character, even having a few bro moments where they mimicked things like talking over the roof of the car and Sam's healthy eating patterns. The weechester flashbacks came into importance during the climax so I was real happy about that, you know make every scene count and all that instead of just throwing in some fluff. Although admittedly I'm just as happy with fluff too. The Baddie turned out to be truly scary bad and the secondary characters were all fleshed out characters with interesting personalities all their own.Witch's Canyon is a Supernatural book that I'm happy to recommend.

As expected

Thank god! This is how a Supernatural Series book needs to read! Fantastic from start to end. Anytime a book keeps me so entwined that I don't want to put it down, it's going to get 5 stars from me. Fresh off my disappointent from Nevermore comes Witch's Canyon.The book opens with Sam and Dean visiting a big hole (Grand Canyon) and they happen upon a woman mourning the loss of her husband. This chance encounter leads Sam and Dean to a small town that has been cursed with a "forty year cycle" of death. The deceased residents of this small town are coming back and killing their victims in the same way they were killed. Sam and Dean must determine the source of the "cycle" and stop it before the opening of the new mall becomes a massacre.This is one that I would definitely like to see transferred to the small screen and I would make a point to watch. If you are a fan of the series then you MUST READ Witch's Canyon. This book so well written that it took little imagination to actually visualize what was taking place. Only one other author (Stuart Woods) has accomplished this for me. I am very excited to check out some of Jeff Mariotte's other work.- Dan.

This was an excellent trip back to a classic "monster-of-the-week" episode of SPN before the larger, arcing stories took over the mid-to-later seasons - just the boys in the Impala touring and kicking butt. It was very well paced, with an engaging and gripping plot, and spot-on character behavior and situations (difficult to find in tie-in novels). That said, Dean and Sam are only in about 75% of the story, but you don't really notice that as the entirety is so interesting.