REVIEW: The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
As much as I love long fantasy series and adore the trilogies that seem to be the backbone of the fantasy writing world, sometimes I can’t commit to a multibook adventure. Whether it’s a quick but impactful novella or a full-length standalone novel, there is something intensely satisfying in knowing that you are reading a contained singular tale.
I’m trying to use standalone fiction more to break up my jumps from series to series, and it seems to be working quite well. I’ve been working through the GdM Top 10 List of Standalone fantasy novels and adding others to my TBR list as I go. One name that kept coming up as a recommendation was Hugo Award winning Alix E. Harrow. Team GdM praises her highly, with magazine editor Beth saying, ‘Harrow can do no wrong.’ Harrow’s Southern Gothic Starling House tempted me as my first venture into her writing, I’ve had a copy of her The Once and Future Witches on my shelf for a while, so I picked that up instead.
What was originally intended as a palate cleanser between reading an eight-book series has become one of my top reads of the year so far. The Once and Future Witches is a very well-written, uncannily relevant story of power and sisterhood.
Set in 1893, The Once and Future Witches takes place in New Salem, a city free from the sin of witchcraft. We follow the three Eastwood sisters reuniting: Beatrice Belladonna, Agnes Amaranth, and James Juniper, who know what it’s like to be powerless and abused. The only power available to women is to rally for their vote; magic and the witches who wielded it have been purged from society and are now nothing but a half-remembered nursery rhyme. But all you need to cast is the words, the will, and the way. Some words survive no matter how many books are burnt. Some wills will not be broken. Witches will always find a way.
When faced with impossibly difficult times, Harrow’s story of hope and strength should appeal to many readers, but the Eastwood sisters make The Once and Future Witches stand out. They are all flawed, rough, and wounded in different ways. They must work out how they fit together as adult sisters after a profoundly cruel childhood and how they can be wilful women in a society that won’t allow it. Their development and growth throughout The Once and Future Witches were the reason I kept reading. I cared deeply for these women and their stories, and considering they are fictional women in a fantasy story, they felt genuine to me. They aren’t the morally grey typical grimdark lead we may expect, but they are far from perfect and are underdogs worth rooting for. The Once and Future Witches’ villain, Gideon Hill, is as disturbing as the Eastwood sisters are endearing. Sadly, a charismatic man who abuses their power is more than a fictional trope, but thankfully, at least Gideon Hill is fictional.
Set in a time most usually associated with industrial changes and the women’s suffrage movement, a story about the return of lost magic does not feel out of place. In The Once and Future Witches, Harrow places lots of historical nuggets to make the story feel more accurate to the reader. The story’s dark elements are also more real than fantastical. For example, there are two traumatic birth scenes, one of which results in maternal mortality. There is a societal stigma around unwed mothers, but even more so around the procurement or provision of abortion. But in a way, this makes the bad things that happen in The Once and Future Witches more impactful. These horrible things do not occur because they are witches; they happen because they are women. There are moments in The Once and Future Witches that ring eerily true in today’s world, even though this is an alternate-history fantasy novel set centuries ago, and that’s quite a disturbing feeling to have.
The Once and Future Witches is an unexpected newfound favourite of mine, and I am glad to have finally read Alix E. Harrow. I loved the tradition associated with her magic system and the complexity of her characters. As with all standalone stories, the ending is a little bittersweet, but that’s also a big part of their charm: this is all you get, even if you would actually quite like there to be some more, please.
I may not be able to read more of this particular story, but I will be picking up Alix E. Harrow again.
Read The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
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