Sisterhood. Women’s rights. Personhood. Witches. Alix Harrow’s second novel, The Once and Future Witches, is a lyrical fantasy novel that shines the lens on the suffragette movement that feels as relevant today as it is compared to the times about which Harrow is writing. Harrow posits fantastical past (1893) where three sisters come together in New Salem and witchcraft has been essentially erased and criminalized. This past has strong echoes of our own history, but witchcraft or “witch-ways” of spell-crafting is real, some historical names have changed, and rather than the Brothers Grimm, many of the old morality tales were written by the “Sisters Grimm.” Of course, the women’s movement to vote is a real thing, but Harrow does a nice job paralleling that with witchcraft and women’s reclamation of spell making and magic.
In the late 1800s, three sisters use witchcraft to change the course of history in Alix E. Harrow’s powerful novel of magic and the suffragette movement.
In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.
But when the Eastwood sisters — James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna — join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women’s movement into the witch’s movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote — and perhaps not even to live — the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.
There’s no such thing as witches. But there will be.
An homage to the indomitable power and persistence of women, The Once and Future Witches reimagines stories of revolution, sapphic love, motherhood, and women’s suffrage–the lost ways are calling.
The Eastwood Sisters (in age order), Beatrice Bella, Agnes Amaranth, and James Juniper (June), who went their separate ways years prior to the opening of the novel. Bella is a librarian, Agnes works in a factory, and June is a girl on the run. The Eastwood Sisters have somehow all found themselves converging in New Salem when a Tower magically appears in the sky. Bella accidentally casts a spell, essentially announcing that witchcraft is not dead. A bold statement and bold image to get the narrative moving. The return of witchcraft spurs an ambitious politician, Gideon Hill, to run for town Mayor and he most certainly is not an advocate of witchcraft. This sets him at odds with the Eastwoods, especially June who is the most vocal advocate of not just witchcraft, but women’s rights in general. When June is kicked out of the New Salem Women’s Association for her witchy agenda, June starts the Sisters of Avalon, open to all women. Bella finds herself becoming quite friendly with Cleopatra “Cleo” Quinn, who is a prominent figure in the black women’s social movement in New Salem.
The story very much rests on the six strong and capable shoulders of the Eastwood Sisters. Harrow weaves their characters into wonderful unique people. Their ties as sisters strengthen over the course of the novel, but they remain true to their own, specific identities.
One of Harrow’s through-lines in this novel is empowerment and fighting for that empowerment. Witchcraft is a symbolic, easy to point at fantastical element that works metaphorically, but Harrow gives the novel an added sense of tense urgency with the real-life suffragette movement of the 1800s along with the very much alive racism in the 19th Century. Although these are potent themes, having a single enemy who encapsulates these injustices makes for a big target and Gideon Hill is certainly a character with depth. He comes into the story rather subtly at the outset, takes a step into shadows to an extent, but is a fully formed villainous target as the novel reaches its wonderful conclusion.
The Once and Future Witches is Harrow’s second novel, following on her extremely successful debut The Thousand Doors of January. I read that as an audio book earlier in the year, so I was very excited to read her next book, especially since it is about witches. What shines through in both of the novels she’s published at this point, and to a very powerful degree here in The Once and Future Witches is Harrow’s love for, knowledge of, and powerful abilities in storytelling. There’s an almost fairy-tale like opening to the novel that lulls the reader into a false sense of security and safety. As we get deeper into the novel, characters tell each other stories, fairy tales or morality tales that impart some level of caution about events the characters are experiencing. Even more than that, magic and is inexplicably tied to books and the written word. I found myself comparing this book to Naomi Novik’s marvelous Uprooted at times.
Alix E. Harrow has another unleashed another spectacular novel to the world in The Once and Future Witches. Spellbinding, thought-provoking, and downright un-put-down-able.
Highly Recommended
© 2020 Rob H. Bedford
Published by Red Hook Books | October 2020
Hardcover | 528 Pages
Excerpt: https://www.orbitbooks.net/2020/03/03/read-an-excerpt-from-the-once-and-future-witches-by-alix-e-harrow/
https://alixeharrow.wixsite.com/author | https://twitter.com/AlixEHarrow
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, Red Hook Books/Hachette Book Group
