Slow Funeral

by Rebecca Ore

Running away from Bracken County and its corrupt magical practices after her parents are killed, Maude Fuller attempts to deny her witch destiny, until her beloved grandmother's impending death summons Maude back home.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction

314 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 1994

About the author

Rebecca Ore is the pseudonym of science fiction writer Rebecca B. Brown.

Rebecca Ore was born in Louisville, KY, out of people from Kentucky and Virginia, Irish Catholic and French Protestant turned Southern Baptist on her mother's side and Welsh and Borderer on her father's. She grew up in South Carolina and fell in love with New York City from a distance, moved there in 1968 and lived on the Upper West Side and Lower East Side for seven years. Somehow, she also attended Columbia University School of General Studies while spending most of her energy in the St. Mark Poetry Project. In 1975, she moved to San Francisco for almost a year, then moved to Virginia, back and forth several places for several years, finished a Masters in English, then moved to rural Virginia for ten years, writing s.f. novels and living in her grandparent's house after they died.

Reviews

[Marie]

Truly excellent realization of magic in a mundane setting. Possibly the best I've read. I wonder there isn't more talk about this as an influential book in urban fantasy.

My only objection is that with the unreliable narrator and all, I'd want to know for sure a few things right at the climax that were clarified after the fact.
And really, the villains are so villainous I'd appreciate slowing down their comeuppance.

[Steven]

One of my go-to books for how magic should work in fiction. The characterization is sharp, as is the prose ("Soap, stones, nakedness, and linen - a trap to catch a man in.").