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Lydia Polk is just an everyday witch from a simple background; she considers herself skinny and plain. Her mother, an herbalist and soothsayer, has raised her alone. While Evelyn had not attended the Royal Academy of Witches, Lydia had decided to apply at age 11 and had been accepted.
Now it’s wartime, and Great Britain is facing the might of Germany. Lydia has been apprenticed to the Grand Mistress of the academy, who has made the decision to step into human affairs and help Churchill win the war. The British witches have learned that Hitler is using his country’s witches to track down a very dangerous magical book, the Grimorium Bellum. If the Germans get their hands on it, all will surely be lost.
When one of the Nazi witches infiltrates the academy, killing its leader, the coven is divided on whether to continue with the Grand Mistress’s plan. Despite her heartbreak, however, Lydia knows she must move forward in finding the book, with or without the support of the academy.
She ends up in occupied France, where she finds help from Rebecca Gagne, a French resistance fighter, and Henry Boudreaux, an art historian from New Orleans. Rebecca has a difficult time trusting the English witch at first, but when she decides to assist Lydia, she puts her heart into the task. Henry is a Black man from America who is quietly holed up in an old chateau, guarding artworks that have been removed from large cities for protection. He has been away from his home city for a long time and left behind the magic threaded through his own life. But his relative quietude is shaken when Lydia arrives, having discovered that the Grimorium has been brought to the chateau.
Finding the book is going to be difficult, as Lydia is racing the German witches, but when she does find it, it proves to be even more of a challenge. The book is doing all it can to cause trouble, seeming to be almost a living thing. Lydia will have to use all her powers to not be dragged into its dark depths before she can destroy it — if that’s even possible.
A Resistance of Witches is compelling reading: I devoured it in just two or three evenings, staying up late because I had to read another chapter … and then another. It is World War II historical fiction mixed with a magical narrative reminiscent of A Discovery of Witches, though here the story is all wrapped up in one book, so it’s less of a saga.
It can get dark: the Grimorium Bellum is evil, and the witches working for Hitler are thoroughly bad. Henry’s family background involves spirits and voodoo, which is played for good in this story, but that world is at play here. His race plays a role, as well: his being Black in this era means certain things.
A Resistance of Witches was a great story to read the week of Halloween, with the witches and magic, of course. But you don’t have to wait until next Halloween season to read it. If you’re in the mood for a page-turning historical fiction book that incorporates mystery and magic, go for it.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes 5 uses of strong language, around 15 instances of moderate profanity, about 30 uses of mild language, and 15 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content is limited to brief kissing. Violence is fairly frequent; there are many instances of injuries and deaths, with a moderate amount of blood and gore.
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