| Weight | 0.25 kg |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 21 × 14 × 1.8 cm |
A Strange and Wicked Magic
RM 39.90
Author: Zack Shah
A dark but familiar sequel to the best-selling “More than Words”, Zack Shah returns with a much-anticipated second volume of poetry and prose titled “A Strange and Wicked Magic”.
Haunting, beautiful, and provocative, this new collection unravels the ambivalent nature of love, how it is neither good nor bad but both: venom and nectar, poison and cure, heaven and hell. This book will take you through the highs and lows of it all, the pain and the pleasure, the chaos and the calm, the hurting and the healing. A bittersweet read for the lovelorn, the lonely, and the lost.
Launched on March 29, 2022, in all major bookstores nationwide on Zack’s birthday!
230 pages.
N. F Afrina –
A Strange and Wicked Magic is a mysetrious yet vulnerable mishmash of feelings put into words. It has that magnetic pull in the pages that made me finish the whole book in one sitting.
I’m not always a fan of poetry books because I don’t always agree with everything and poetry, unlike fiction, is a raw rendition of the author’s thoughts. It’s a hit or miss. But I think this book is vague enough for readers to make their own meaning, which I really look forward when reading books, especially poetry books. Because sometimes reading some poems just feel like reading a personal diary and that makes me so uncomfortable. That didn’t happen in A Strange and Wicked Magic.
The short stories at the end were a treat. I loooove fairytale retellings and I think the author did such a beautiful job retelling the stories and putting mini spins in it.
Thank you @penwingspublishing for sending me this book. Sorry @zackshahpoet I finished your book that you probably spent so many time and sweat on in one sitting.
Anis Suraya binti Arjunamuda –
A first time poetry reader is about to review her first poetry book. I received a copy of A Strange & Wicked Magic which is the second book by Zack Shah and this is a poetry and short stories book and I would like to say I love it so much.
I have no complaints over this book. I find the poems are really relatable. They’re still deep, not too simplistic but still gets you to think and ponder upon the meaning of life.
It also centers around the theme of love so it’s something that everyone can understand, everyone can read, everyone can relate to so, like nothing can go wrong when you write something that centers around the theme of love.
Since this book also contains short stories, the short stories contains twisted fairy tales I think might be the best twisted fairy tales that I have ever read so far.
Definitely a worthy read. I tab all of my favorite poems, which are a lot of them. So, don’t forget to go and get it guys! I love it so much!
Adibah Atiqa –
Are you the kind of person who treasure weaved words especially of poetry, prose and short stories? Do you easily mesmerised by beautiful stanzas, rhyming or lines with heightened imagery and emotionally impacted?
If you are who I mentioned above, I urge you to give a chance in reading this newly released book of Penwings, ‘A Strange & Wicked Magic’ by Zack Shah. I can guarantee, you’ll be doing yourself a favour.
🧚🏻 This book divided into four parts; Lost Souls, Déjà Vu, Incantations and Twisted Tales.
🧚🏻 Lost Souls (with 3 chapters— Fallen Stars, City of Sadness, Always and Forever) and Déjà Vu are collections of poem and poetry prose about love also heartbreak that comes after.
🧚🏻 Incantations is compilation of bewitching spells while Twisted Tales contains short stories of familiar figure in classic fairy tales fabricated into its own unexpected turn of events (well, living up to their title TWISTED TALES)
🧚🏻 Spare me some time and let me convince you why you need to pick up this book, shall we?
🌙 Lost Souls
— Despite comes with three chapters starting with relationship phase of ‘being in love’ to pain and grief over unrequited love to acceptance stage of heartbreak where you ready to be at peace with your own self, I love how the author makes me feel like a developed story itself instead of series regarding poem and poetry prose because it flows progressively from one page to another.
— My absolute favourite in this one is a poetry prose called ‘Last Sunset’. My oh my, the way each words intertwined into something that described my unspoken contemplation just, wow, WHOA. I now agree that it’s close to magical how others’ expressed thoughts might share the same fundamental piece of your heart. How beautiful isn’t?
🌙 Déjà Vu
— it’s like a proper closure to Lost Souls and somehow, for me, it’s also feels like an alternate ending or maybe afterthought to the previous part.
— this is not a spoiler, no worries, I just want to share my insight regarding this one where I thought at first, this might be getting back to once he/she loved or it’s brand new love with another person but end up, having the very similar ending but there will be one poem that make me went “Oh, hold on…hm interesting”
🌙 Incantations
— Everyone, I just want to say, this is such a brilliant and refreshing idea of the author utilised his gift of words’ play to create spells. Aaahh it’s so good!
— You know, how traditional magic spell made up of fascinating and flowery lines that took some moment for you to understand the meaning behind it. Some also constructed into rhyme system which similar to poem. This is another level of creating parallelism between poetry and spells. I love it as throughout the read, I might pretend being an enchanter myself.
🌙 Twisted Tales
— guys, there are THREE short stories where the author comes up with such great excellence of beauty which basically summarised all of them literally screamed ‘tragedy that can never be undone due to harsh truth of reality’.
— I couldn’t say more because YOU GUYS HAVE TO FREAKING READ IT AND KNOW WHY I LOVE IT SO MUCH AAAHH!!! And oh, I forget to mention that these short stories are so morally grey coded to its very marrow bone. Aha, yes, I know that I already hooked you, don’t I?
— Alright, alright, I give you some hint: one served as backstory villain to the sea’s princess, one probably combined two well known Disney fairy tales of glass slipper and poisoned apple and one took such a smooth genderbend in cursed kingdom.
🧚🏻 Overall, ‘A Strange and Wicked Magic’ is such a beautiful piece of work. There are some poems that isn’t my liking as it a bit repetitive but I appreciate it still because from one poet to another, I feel the genuine emotion.
🧚🏻 And the rest (which is A LOT) where I come to love from the bottom of my heart, thank you Zack Shah for your courage to write down the words and as it become much alive in a space once blank. Thank you for sharing your words to the minds that crave of possibilities, to the souls in need of assurance and to the hearts that found comfort in it.
📌 If you read it til the end, gotcha! I know you’re interested and the book is now available in most major bookstores in Malaysia.
Dandileah –
A Strange and Wicked Magic is a poetry and short story book that really amazed me on how much I connected to these poems and how much emotions I felt during reading this book.
To be honest I haven’t picked up a poetry and short story book ever since I graduated high school but I did want to get back into it and really study about poetry again and Penwings Publising just so happens to send me this book and I must say I actually really enjoyed reading these poems.
I tab and annotate my books and the more annotations the better which exactly happened to this poetry and short story book. I tabbed so much to always look back at my favorite poems or ones that I connected to. I also could understand most of these poems instantly which I think is the fun part of reading a poetry book because you kind of went through that certain situation in your life and for me reading it in a form of a poem was really therapeutic.
My favorite part of the book is definitely the Incantations, it is like casting a spell in a form of a poem. I absolutely love reading wizard and witches type fantasy book and for the author to put this concept in the book makes it so much fun to read.
This book as I mentioned has short stories as well which I really enjoyed reading all of them and the short stories are like those old Disney fairytale but with a twist which makes it more interesting to read.
I personally think this book is perfect for beginners such as myself as these poems are really easy to understand but still fun to read.