This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.
The three Eastwood sisters grew up with a daddy who made them want to be gone — or for him to be gone. And the two older ones did leave their small country home when they were teens, leaving behind the youngest. When James Juniper does finally take off, she goes in search of Agnes Amaranth and Beatrice Belladonna. She finds them in the city of New Salem, which was built when old Salem was burned down with all its witches.
It’s 1893, and everyone knows witching is gone, except for a few little charms women may use to keep a house clean or their clothes free from wrinkles. Women aren’t looking to get back the more powerful magic; they just want the vote.
Seventeen-year-old Juniper, however, a willful and impetuous girl, wants to join the suffragists because she figures they should be angling for all the power they can get, voting and magic included. Her older sisters aren’t looking for trouble; they have no desire to get caught up in June’s plans. But they find themselves drawn in eventually. And while they find out there’s much more magic spread among women than they had imagined, they also know for certain they have to join forces and bring back the old ways.
The Eastwood sisters fight for what’s rightfully theirs — the rights all women should have. For the power men have taken from them. To be able to be free, to choose what they want for their own lives. Magic is both a goal and a means to that end. But taking back power is an incredibly dangerous goal, when men have held it for so long. Evil will stalk them the whole way, and they will give everything.
The Once and Future Witches is another excellent story from Alix E. Harrow. It’s long but, still, every phrase is so well crafted and can’t be skipped. Harrow’s prose is just, well, magical: it’s something to dive into and get lost in, to savor. This book is much like her wondrous The Ten Thousand Doors of January in that way. But Witches is sharper, more dangerous. Every page is a rallying cry, a call to women to rise up from the shackles far too many men have put on them. It doesn’t lump all men into one category, though; it does acknowledge some supportive and good men who treasure women for all of who they are.
If you’re looking for another January, this isn’t it; that was much lighter and dreamier, a transporting experience. But if you like magic and witches and fierce women, you should find yourself enraptured by this story.
Rated: Moderate. There are 4 instances of strong profanity, around 45 uses of moderate language, about 120 instances of mild profanity, and about 10 uses of the name of Deity in vain. There are a few scenes of kissing, some sex scenes that include little detail, including some between two women. There are a lot of references to domestic violence and abuse, though hardly any detail about what occurred. Several fires happen, some of which are fatal. One main character is held in a prison cell with horrible conditions and tortured for information.
