Hour of the Witch

by Chris Bohjalian

There were people in the world who were good and people who were evil, but most of them were some mixture of both and did what they did simply because they were mortal. And her Lord? Peregrine’s Lord? He knew it all and had known it all and always would know it all. But the deliberations of His creations? Meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. Still, there was one thing of which she was certain. “Oh, I think we do know,” Mary said finally. “Yes, this may be the hour of the witch. But the Devil? He most definitely wears breeches. The Devil can only be a man.”

There are so many parts of this passage that COULD have been the title of this novel. You can see the one that we chose: HOUR OF THE WITCH. But this is a novel, in my opinion, about strong women and feckless men. Or evil men. To paraphrase Taylor Swift, the “F--- the patriarchy keychain” is on the ground – but in this case, it’s a gauntlet that has been thrown.