Not Just A Witch

Hectate Tenbury-Smith 'Heckie' is not just a witch. She’s a good witch…a witch who betters the world by transforming wicked people into harmless animals. Straight out of WAW (witches against wickedness) school, she’s hopes to make the world a better place accompanied by her best friend Dora Mayberry (who incidentally can turn anything into stone). However an ugly spat makes the two witches part ways and head off in opposite directions.

With her good intentions still intact, Heckie settles down in Wellbridge ready to rid the town of it’s nasty citizens. Her unlikely accomplice is a boy called Daniel, who’s the neglected son of two eminent professors. Also joining the “Wickedness Hunters” are Daniel’s friends Sumi and Joe and a motley crew of witches and wizards.

Armed with her 'Knuckle of Power' and 'Toe of Transformation', Heckie is soon righting wrongs and adding some unique creatures to the local zoo! But soon an oily character called Lionel Knacksap begins to court Heckie. The smitten Heckie doesn’t realize that Knapsack has witnessed her magical powers and is all out to exploit them for his own benefits. Trouble is definitely brewing.....will Heckie realize smarmy Knacksap’s true agenda?....will she bind ties with woebegone Dora?...and will the “Wickedness Hunters” triumph at the end of the day?

Another funny read from the Eva Ibbotson stable. Once more she makes supernatural entities and slimy monsters lovable and laughable. Her plots are never predictable and initial page-fillers are infact crucial to the plot. Thoroughly enjoyable and a fun way to drive out the monsters from under your bed!!!

Sabrina

"A woman happily in love burns her soufflé, a woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven. "

~ Baron St. Fontanel (Sabrina 1954)

Sabrina Fairchild (Audrey Hepburn) is the chauffeur’s young and scruffy daughter. They live in Long Island above the garage of their employers, the effluent Larrabees. Polishing cars and helping out her father, she is reconciled to a life of unrequited love. The object of her affections is the charming but feckless playboy, David Larrabee (William Holden). Her free time is spent perched atop trees, staring into the glorious dances where David waltzes one giggly socialite after another. At the other end of the spectrum, is David’s elder brother Linus Larrabee (Humphrey Bogart), businessman extraordinaire. With no place for emotions in his life, Linus is the problem-solver, the money-maker and the quintessential highstreet tycoon.

Sabrina is soon sent off to France for a cooking course by her father, who hopes that the distance and the charms of Paris will make her forget David. In between soufflés and sauces, Sabrina learns poise, charm and confidence. She learns how to live life and instead of scooting from her problems, decides to return to Long Island and try her luck with David once more.

A stunned David is predictably swooped off his feet by the new and sophisticated Sabrina. He pursues her with a single-minded determination, while conveniently forgetting the small detail that he is engaged to be married. Add to that the fact that the marriage is infact a merger between two prominent business houses and the foothold on which rests a million-dollar deal.

Enter Linus and his attempts to thwart the fledgling romance. He decides that the best course of action would be to woo Sabrina himself. While the plan seems to be proceeding splendidly, Linus had not taken into consideration how susceptible he himself would be to Sabrina’s considerable charms.

A refreshingly simple movie with the effervescent Hepburn steering it along, Sabrina is a delight to watch. Fifteen minutes into the first-half of the movie and you want to shed your brashness and cynicism, modulate your tone and bottle up some of that lovely freshness that Audrey Hepburn wears like a second skin.

The Thieves Of Ostia (The Roman Mysteries)

A mysterious adventure of four friends à la The Famous Five/ The Secret Seven. The only distinguishing factor : The story is set in 79 A.D. Rome

The first book in “The Roman Mysteries” series, 'The Thieves of Ostia' is more of an introduction to the four main characters. Flavia Gemina, daughter of sea captain Marcus Flavius Geminus. Nubia, the pretty little slave girl who is saved by Flavia and now lives with her. Jonathan ben Mordecai, Flavia’s new Jewish neighbour. And Lupus, the mute beggar boy, who is sly and cunning…but a big help nevertheless.

Ostia , a seaport in Rome provides the setting for their first adventure. Someone is killing the neighbourhood dogs and lopping their heads off. One of the unfortunate victims is Jonathan's own watchdog, Bobas. Whodunnit, that's basically the premise of this book.

But what really appeals is the glimpse into ancient Rome.....the life and times, the settings, the beliefs, the culture and quaintly enough the manner in which the author has stuck to the whole theme. Dutifully provided with a reference scroll at the end of the story, the book is an interesting lesson in history.

It Happened One Night

I had always tagged “Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin” as one of my all-time favourite movies. Mismatched lovers, a mad happy-trip and quick-moving dialogue.

It was only recently that I realized that the Aamir Khan starrer was infact a remake of the original “It Happened One Night”. Barring the song ‘n’ dance routine, practically every scene has been dutifully lifted from this 1934 screwball comedy.

Jaded and thoroughly spoilt heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) has married money-grubbing playboy “King” Westley. The marriage hasn’t been consummated yet and her father, the doting Alexander Andrews (Walter Connolly) wants the union annulled. But Ellie who’s always used to having her own way, escapes from her father…leaping off the family yacht. She decides to head off to New York to be reunited with her dubious lover.

On the bus-ride, she encounters smart talking, out-of-work newsman Peter Warne (Clark Gable). He strikes a deal with Ellie. In exchange for an exclusive scoop , he will duly deliver Ellie to New York.

What proceeds is a screw-ball adventure loaded with smart dialogue and typical “rich-girl-faces-real-world” scenarios. Throwing a spanner into the works is the fact that somewhere along the way; two opposites attract and inevitably fall in love.

A quick and snappy story with no long-drawn out sequences,”It Happened One Night” is an endearing film. A classic case of "Old is DEFINATELY gold"!!

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, #2)

You can read the same book at two different points in time and come away with totally contrasting opinions. When I first read “The Second Summer of the Sisterhood”, it was immediately after riding on the high created by the first. I had great expectations…eager to know what Bridget, Lena, Tibby and Carmen had cooked up this time. But I came away with a feeling of “umm-yeah-okayy”. Then the slump took an upturn with Girls In Pants: the Third Summer of The Sisterhood, which made me write a glowing review and be quite scathing about the middle-child!

But today, in my slightly whimsical mood, The Second Summer turned out to be “yep-SO-true!!”. The four disparate friends are back for a second season of reaping the magic of “The Traveling Pants”.

Bridget ‘Bee’ decides to take a breather and head off to Alabama, the home of her estranged maternal grandmother. She needs to have questions of her deceased mum answered and decides that the best way to do so is go incognito (which isn’t hard considering that she has put on oodles of weight and dyed her glorious hair a muddy shade of brown).

Carmen has to digest the unpalatable fact that her divorced mum is falling in love, can be as giggly as a giddy-headed teenager AND has the absolute temerity to borrow THE PANTS for a date!!

Tibby has headed off to Williamston College for a film-course. In a typical attempt to impress two seemingly-cool classmates, she ignores good but geeky friend Brian and makes a documentary ridiculing her mum.

Lena who was madly in love with Kostos the past summer has promptly broken up with him. Severing ties seems to be much better than dealing with the uncertainites of love.

Predictable agony, stress and nail-bed damage. But there’s also a sense of stoic acceptance.....the need to change and for the better. The friends make mistakes, act appallingly, realise their shortcomings and continue to bolster each other’s sagging spirits.

On the whole, a fat satisfying read for those days when you need something dramatic and yet not over-powering.

For reviews on the other Sisterhood books, please click on the following links:

> The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants

> Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of The Sisterhood

> Forever in Blue : The Fourth Summer of The Sisterhood

Brida

All I could conclude after reading Brida was that either I am a complete heathen or singularly incapable of feeling stronger emotions. Because, I still fail to see what all the hype is about. There I go picking up another Paulo Coelho ("The Alchemist" being my only yardstick to go by), hoping to come away enlightened, charmed, awed or any of the numerous adjectives that generally pepper a Coelho review.

What my pea-sized brain gathered from the blurb was that the book was about overcoming your fear of commitment, searching for love despite all the pitfalls that you have already faced and basically never stop looking.

Reality (as always) turned out to be something else entirely. The book is infact about a young girl Brida's initiation into the wiccan world. Her quest for knowledge and search for her soulmate are often accompanied by pagan rituals, bouts of introspection and the occasional trip into a past life. Somewhere along the line, things get a bit repetitive and tedious.

The only quotes that I liked and made sense in an otherwise rambling narrative:

Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day" ~ Brida's father (Pg.99)

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd" ~ William Blake (Pg.174)

"I learned that the search for God is a Dark Night, that Faith is a Dark Night. And that's hardly a surprise really, because for us each day is a dark night. None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, and yet we still go forwards. Because we trust. Because we have Faith." ~ Brida (Pg.24)