Reviews

I absolutely LOVED this book. Not sure I can really form any deep thoughts but it was so powerful, fun, tense, and well written and I enjoyed every second of it.

jacquisxo's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

nclcaitlin's review against another edition

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3.5

Once upon a time there were three sisters. Juniper, the youngest and wildest; Agnes, the carer and the tireless; Beatrice, the oldest and wisest.
Now reunited in New Salem there are whispers of witching as the sisters pursue the Lost Way of Avalon which would bring magic back as it once was. It is time for the women's movement to become the witches' movement.

Set in the 1890s, Harrow transports you right in to New Salem with all its seedy underground joints, its different class and race boundaries, and the tense and fragile precipice of violence.
Harrow masterfully covers a range of important and pressing topics as she normally does in her books. Queerness, abuse, feminism, the suffragette movement, racial equality, labour rights, motherhood, identity….

Witching and women's rights. Suffrage and spells. They're both..." She gestures in midair again. "They're both a kind of power, aren't they? The kind we aren't allowed to have."

Per usual, Harrow demonstrates exquisite prose that reads like its own fairytale, adding to the dark, foreboding atmosphere that builds throughout the book. This is especially aided by the interspersed fairytale snippets that is told that connects in some way to the main plot.

The ending was bittersweet but suited the story and reminded me a lot of Ten Thousand Doors of January. However, I do think this is my least favourite of Harrow’s work. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it - I was bewitched! It just didn’t carry that same magic I have got from her other books despite it being arguably the most rooted in magic.

“Surely trust is never truly broken, but merely lost." Beatrice's lips twist.
"And what is lost, that can't be found?"