Riding on the skirts of Morrison's Utterly Wicked, this fictional tale of Tess Logan and her trials and triumphs with magic and the deadly occult will take you on one wild ride. Morrison usually delves into the occult and magic from a nonfiction view point, but I think this book applies her other works into a scenario that many can identify with, at least when it comes to love and success. I enjoyed the book immensely and am looking forward to future novels from Morrison. ( )

A hundred year old curse reaches out from the grave to ensnare Tess Logan in a tragic cycle of love, lust, betrayal and murder in Lucinda's Web. A bitter rivalry for affection led to the laying of spells whose power reignites when Tess moves opposite a cemetery, and then meets Luke Benson. As the curse strengthens, Tess's friends are drawn into it's web with each having a part to play in the unfolding drama. Unless they can solve the century old mystery and destroy the charmed objects they are all at risk of forfeiting their lives to the past.

The main thrust of Lucinda's Web is interesting and well thought out. As a practicing Wiccan Priestess, author Dorothy Morrison uses her knowledge of the occult to include magic, hoodoo, reincarnation, possession and more to develop a creative story. After a somewhat slow start there is plenty of tension as the curse tightens and the ending has a chilling twist but I think that the plot was almost overwhelmed by Morrison's technique of using several of her characters to tell the story, in both first and third person points of view. The transitions were not always easy to follow and for me, the story often felt disjointed and crowded.
Morrison's characters are all very strong personalities. Tess smokes like a chimney, drinks copious amounts of coffee, swears like a sailor and has the temperament of a cut snake, all unusual traits I would have thought for a Wiccan witch and her tendency to take offense at almost everything annoyed me. An aggressive tone is present in many of the other characters as well, even in the most benign of interactions there are a lot of exclamation marks, capital letters and italics used. I struggled to relate to any of the cast which affected my enthusiasm for the story.

There are not currently a lot of reviews for the book but it has earned high praise from other readers. While I think the book had a strong concept and the writing was of a good standard, unfortunately Lucinda's Web didn't really work for me. I picked it up and put it down several times over a few days and had I not been committed to reviewing it, I'm not sure I would have finished. ( )