I love witch books so how could I pass on an alternate Victorian fantasy novel about suffragette witches? For the most part, The Once and Future Witches lived up to my high expectations thanks to fascinating female characters and beautiful prose.

Told from the alternating point of views of the Eastwood sisters, the three estranged sisters find each again all with a little magic. It’s 1893 and there are no more witches and, certainly, no witches would ever be allowed to vote. But as the three sisters reunite and join the New Salem suffragette movement, the witching ways of the past are awakened when a new danger lurks nearby.

In the meantime, there are a couple of interesting love stories for the sisters (even if I was slightly indifferent to them). But, really, this is more a feminist novel about sisters, prejudice, and sacrifice. While the pacing is sometimes slow, The Once and Future Witches is a well-written new novel to read this Halloween.

The Once and Future Witches

Beautifully told book that deals with the sexism that women have to deal with everyday.

Witchcraft is practiced in private by every women. Children's rhymes are used to pass down spells. The Eastwood sisters are raised in the country by their hedge witch grandmother and abusive father. An event leads the sisters to split apart from each other. When the sisters are reunited in New Salem they begin to seek the power that had been denied them.

This book is very good with balance. There are three main protagonists with different personalites and different desire to use witchcraft. The book shows that it's not just white women who have been denying their magic powers. Black people have their own magic society including an underground tunnel that only lets black people us it.

The only problem I did have was that sometimes I felt the length of the novel. I understand why some characters had to take their time embrassing changes but I still felt the desire to shake some sisters regarding their feelings.

This review is based on advanced copy provided through Netgalley for an honest review.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to get an ARC of this book! Witches and Magic and the Suffragette Movement? These are some of my favourite words!

I can't tell you how much I love a story about sisters, especially when the sisters are so different and estranged and have secrets, but still secretly love each other and would do anything for each other. The Eastwood sisters are everything and more.

I can’t tell you how important and timely and moving this book is. Yes, it’s a book about sisters and about witching, but primarily it’s a book about women. Voiceless women who speak up. Oppressed women who stand up. Strong and passionate and devoted women who break free.

The way it weaves a story of witches in with the story of women – it’s a combination I haven’t seen before, but such a natural combination that seems so obvious and works so, so well together. The Eastwood Sisters were such a force to be reckoned with, but Juniper, her feral ferocity completely stole my heart.

I lost myself entirely in the lore of witching, the way old rhymes and fairytales were re-woven into witching words – this was so clever. And somehow, there was opportunity for romance to blossom in between all of this, and those stories were just so sweet and heartwarming.

I enjoyed Harrow’s debut The Ten Thousand Doors of January , but this – this was something I loved so deeply and completely. I loved every single page, every single story, every single fierce, feminist woman.

I needed this book in my life.

I love books about witches and I love Alix E. Harrow so this book was right up my alley. The prose was beautiful and lyrical and the characters were all vibrant and well written. My biggest complaint was that the pacing was way too slow at times. I would fly through a couple of chapters and then everything would grind right down to a halt and I would struggle to pick the book back up. The ending was great, though, and overall I quite enjoyed this stand-alone novel.

This was interesting, beautifully written, and a perfectly witchy start to my October reading! I loved the sisters finding out who they could and should trust, and who deserves their love. If you love diverse, queer, historical fiction and witchiness, this is definitely one to pick up sooner rather than later.

Thank you to Orbit for sending me a finished copy of this book for review!

The Once and Future Witches has been on my list of highly anticipated releases for 2020. The cover was gorgeous, I had heard such incredible things about Harrow's writing style, and I am always here for something witchy.

I had originally rated this a four stars, but after sitting on it for a few days I cannot seem to get the story out of my head, which almost always makes me bump it up to a five star. This will definitely be in my list of top reads of the year.

I picked this up just as fall was starting to roll around here in Ohio, and it was a perfect time. One of the strongest aspects of this book, apart from Harrow's phenomenal writing style, was the atmosphere. You are immediately thrust into this world filled with magic and intrigue. The characters were fantastic. This story had one of my favorite villains and the sister relationship felt very realistic, with each character being well fleshed out.

I would encourage everyone to pick this one up this spooky season. I mean, it is full of feminist witches fighting to bring magic back into their world. What's not to love?

This review is for the uncorrected digital ARC that was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

BUT you'd better believe that as soon as the physical book hits shelves, I'm buying a copy immediately.

As soon as I heard Alix talk about this book, way back in January at an event she did with Erin Morgenstern (while they were promoting The Ten Thousand Doors of January and The Starless Sea), I knew it would need to be at the top of my TBR pile. This is probably my most-anticipated release of 2020 -- and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT.

I'm going to go ahead and say that this will likely go down as my favorite book of 2020. It just checked all the boxes for me: witches and feminism and Appalachia and crows/owls/birds of all types, sisterhood and motherhood and romance and history -- the list goes on and on.

Things that I love the most about this book:
--the attention to detail. There are so many allusions and historical details used to such great effect here; it's like a little scavenger hunt for nerdy readers.
--how character-driven this story is, and how beautifully fleshed-out these sisters are.
--Harrow's prose. Holy hell, this woman can write. Her words are so lyrical but accessible; they never get in the way of the story or the characters.

I knew that this book would completely satisfy me cerebrally after only a few pages; I just had no idea how emotionally invested I would be by the end of it. You'll hear a lot of folks talk about how angry this book is -- and that's true. But it's also hopeful and sad and brave and completely perfect for the world we are living in right now, too.

Once upon a time, there were witches. But not anymore. Not since the burnings began and magic was looked upon as a sinful thing. Now, magic is reduced to a thing of charms and children’s rhymes– something used to keep milk from souring and prevent the yarn from knotting. And even that is regarded as an evil by some in the city of New Salem. But for the Eastwood sisters– James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladona– magic has always been a part of their lives. Or it was, until they were forced apart seven years ago. But circumstances reunite them in the midst of a suffragist rally, when a forbidden spell lights a spark of rebellion within the three women that could lead to a revolution– if they can learn to work together again as sisters.

“What my mother taught me was this: you hide the most important things in the places that matter least. Women’s clothes, children’s toys, songs… Places a man would never look.”

Fairy tale retellings have become a mainstay of modern fantasy. Authors present to us feminist versions of Sleeping Beauty or post-modern Cinderella or Snow White from the evil step-mother’s point of view. But few of these retellings ask why fairy tales, children’s rhymes, or folk songs are so enduring and get passed on from one generation to the next. In her second novel, Hugo Award-winning author Alix E. Harrow asks just that: what is hidden in old rhymes and stories? That is not, however, the only thing The Once and Future Witches deals with. Harrow weaves in narratives of sisterhood (whether the women are blood relatives or not), what it means to be a woman, the power of names, motherhood, and the power of oft-denigrated ‘women’s work’ (sewing, embroidery, child care, and other tasks that mostly women do, that society denigrates because women primarily do them). It’s a tall order for a book, but Harrow handles it with ease, in part because her main characters, the Eastwood sisters, are so different from each other. They may be sisters, but they are not carbon-copies. They have their own wants, their own strengths, and their own reasons for doing what they do. One wants to be loved entirely– not just for certain parts of herself. One wants to love without feeling ashamed of who she loves. One wants to understand why she wasn’t loved in the first place.

The power of sisterhood is another strength of The Once and Future Witches. Fairy tales often feature sisters or step-sisters, but they’re often wicked or evil sisters who want to prevent the innocent heroine from marrying the prince or achieving whatever other goal she has. And even modern tales that claim to be feminist often portray sisters as tearing each other down over a man or an ideal. While the Eastwood sisters have their differences and their own traumas to work through, they’re not at odds with each other to the point that they are willing to sabotage their sisters’ workings. Their relationships aren’t perfect, and they aren’t perfect, but when push comes to shove they will stand together against the villains seeking to crush women and women’s power underfoot.

Speaking of the villain. It’s obvious early on who the villain is and what they’re capable of. Whether this is a flaw is up to the reader, but fairy tale villains have never been subtle. Their subtlety or lack thereof isn’t the point. The fairy tale villain is the story’s counterweight, the being or force the heroine strives against in order to find the inner strength that will allow her to become who she is meant to be. For the Eastwood sisters to find their strength and courage– after women have been beaten down and stripped of power for centuries– it takes a powerful villain indeed to balance out their potential.

As with Harrow’s debut, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, The Once and Future Witches builds a lyrical world where truth and power are written to the stories– and sometimes the plain fabric– of the world around us. It just takes a willingess to open one’s eyes to the notion that amazing things can be found in the everyday. For those willing to take up their courage in both hands and fight for what they know to be right, the struggle might be painful and the sacrifices might be great, but in the end the promise of a better world is worth the price.

Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for providing me with a free ebook in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion.

I picked up this book mainly because I love witches! Their stories are the best and I seem to have read a lot of them this year. This one has been one of my favorites. I really liked the imagery of the magic that was being used in the book. It felt almost old-school magic, which was fun. I really liked the dynamic of the sisters and learning where their issues with each other stemmed from and overcoming that to come back together, as they should have a million years ago! My favorite part, however, was having a queer, librarian witch character because relatable! Harrow did a good job with the interplay of feminism and racism and showing the lack of intersectionality which is important to discuss today as well. Amazing book!

When you think about it, we rarely see good anger. Literature is full of annoyance, frustration, rage, and wrath—but it’s hard for me to think of examples of righteous fury. When we see anger in literature and the movies, we see anger as a bad thing and something that characters need to get through in order to find forgiveness and redemption. And, most of the time, I think this is a perfectly valid way to portray anger. Anger is like fire: dangerous when it gets out of control. But in The Once and Future Witches, by Alix E. Harrow, I got to see the power of righteous fury in changing the status quo for the better. This anger is dangerous, sure, but it warmed me like a cozy hearth.

Like so many other stories, The Once and Future Witches begins with three sisters. One is wise. One is strong. The last one is wild. All of them are on the run from a horrible childhood and old grudges. They’ve been separated for seven years but, when James Juniper Eastwood arrives in New Salem after running from her latest crime. She plans to seek out her sisters but, first, she wants to attend a big suffragist rally in the main square. This novel doesn’t let any grass grow under its metaphorical feet when a work of great magic pulls the three sisters together while also revealing something that all women thought was lost when the last witches were burned at old Salem two hundred years prior.

The Once and Future Witches races along, twisting together sub-plots featuring all three sisters’ emotional traumas with the larger story of the three sisters leading a witchy rebellion against a man who threatens to stamp out the women’s movement (witchy or otherwise) once and for all. I loved every page of this novel; I really did. I loved how Harrow created an alternate history of great women of the past, plagues, and magic. And I really, really enjoyed seeing the protagonists harness their fury against the world’s unfairness and misogyny and racism and fight back against it with everything they have. This book is a fantastic antidote to the weary depression I feel when I read the latest news in this very shitty year.

This summary doesn’t do justice to The Once and Future Witches. There’s just too much to sum up about this incredible story. It’s the kind of book I don’t want to go into too much depth on because I want readers to fall into it the way I did, with no clue what was going to happen next while the plot rocketed around from highs to lows to defeats and triumphs. I want readers to feel just as breathless as I did. It’s the kind of book I want to buy a bagful of copies so that I can run to all my friends, shove it into their hands, and shout “Read this!” while I hurry off to the next future reader.

This book gripped me from start to finish. The Eastwood sisters caught me in their spell, each defiantly their own person in the face of betrayals, trials, inequitable society, and the tropes that usually characterize maidens, mothers, and crones.

Aside from the characters, I also found the mechanics of the magic system, retold fairy-tales, and the world that Harrow crafted to be very compelling. It was also delightful to find so much diversity in a historical setting.

Although I have a soft spot for a well-spun series, it was immensely satisfying to consume a story in its entirety. I eagerly look forward to reading more of the author's work.

I am so sorry but I had to DNF this title. I read to 54% and it still hadn’t grabbed me. I had no interest in the fates of the characters or what happens to them next. I guess there was no emotional connection. I’m sure it’s an amazing story for someone else. Thank you for the opportunity.

Wow, where to begin. Witches are my favorite trope, so you bet I jumped at reading this one. I had no idea what I was going into or what it was even about but I’m so glad I picked it up. Alix Harrow is now on my watch list for everything she writes. The way she weaves her words are, well, magical.

I don’t consider myself a feminist but I guess I am more than I thought because I was rooting for these characters through the end. They fought for what they believed in no matter what tried to stop them.

Three sisters long abandoned each other over a difficult past. Brought together by something bigger than they can even imagine.

Witches won’t be tolerated. Especially a woman witch. But the sisters are destined to change that, together, despite everything.

I don’t usually read books with such heavy.. political stances.. but it works here.

Slow clap to Alix Harrow.

Thanks to NetGalley and Redhook Books for this eARC!

This book felt prescient, a bad, damaged, and powerful man using scapegoats and the most vulnerable to keep his position, a pandemic, misinformation, persecution and anger and resistance, and a feeling that history repeats all told on a funhouse mirror version of Gilded Age America. It isn't prescient though, not really, because we are often in moments of extremis (some more extreme than others). History, change and steps forward met with harsh backlash, two steps forward, X steps back, is a circle, or at least the spiral staircase in a hidden library. It did help me remember that we can help control how hard this backlash hits.

Alix Harrow, after this book and <i>The Ten Thousand Doors of January</i> is quickly becoming one of my authors to watch. I love her rich writing, her fierce women and men, and the way she lets just a little magic into the cracks of the world. Just one criticism, I think this book could have been a little shorter (though it really only took me so long to read it because of my attention span these days). Also, I am mad it isn't already an absolute epic TV show.

Finally, please, please, please vote, and not for the damaged narcissist.

It’s the late 1800’s and there are no more witches. Three sisters are reunited and begin to look for the forgotten words. June, Bella, and Agnes all have their own reasons to look for the words. They also distrust each other. This story was slow to get going. I would say the first 30% of the book I kept reading because I hoped the author was taking me somewhere. Ultimately she did. What lies in children’s stories and fairy tales are answered in this book.

I received an ARC of The Once and Future Witches from Redhook Books in exchange for an honest review.

Alix E. Harrow’s debut, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, made it clear that she was a writer to watch. Her follow-up, The Once and Future Witches, doesn’t quite capture the same magic—but calling it a sophomore slump doesn’t give it enough credit. Imagine someone goes to an art museum and takes a picture of a remarkable painting. The picture isn’t great: the painting isn’t fully in frame, and it’s slightly out-of-focus. You feel like you can’t fully appreciate it without seeing it in person, but you can still recognize the artistry. The Once and Future Witches is the picture of the painting—the scope is a shade too small, lacking crucial context, and the stakes and the characters don’t quite click until late in the novel. But they do click, and the shaky footing upon which the book begins stabilizes into a strong story as it enters its endgame.

That story, which takes place in 1893 in a world where witchcraft is real but largely extinct, follows three witch sisters: James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna (they loosely adhere to the archetypes of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, although Harrow somewhat undermines this). Connecting to these characters was difficult for me because they inhabit a liminal space between fable and reality—sometimes the sisters feel as if they stepped out of a fairy tale, and sometimes they feel like people you would meet on the street. The arc of the novel makes it clear that Harrow’s intent is bring these characters from the realm of reality into the realm of fable, but they pinball between both from the beginning and I struggled to penetrate the carapace of archetype and really get a sense of who the sisters were as people.

This is at least partially a symptom of the awkward chapters which open the book. I can’t quite decide if the story starts too late or too early; it’s hard to get a read on the relationship between the sisters because the novel opens after that relationship has fractured, but it’s also unclear what type of story is being told until 25% into the book, and the plot doesn’t start moving until 50% (which wouldn’t be as big of a problem if the first half had been spent digging deep into the characters, but most of those pages are empty calories). I’m thus inclined to believe the story starts too early—cutting at least a quarter of the novel would have done wonders for the book.

There’s still a lot to like about The Once and Future Witches. Harrow’s prose is heightened and stylized, but it rarely strays into garishness (rarely, not never). And the last 25% of the novel is strong in pretty much every respect: the stakes and the characters are finally in focus, and it feels like the story becomes what Harrow wanted it to be all along. If the whole book was on par with its climactic sequence, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. That said, even though I am hesitating, I am still recommending it. I love the gloriously diverse worldview of this novel—even cis men can be witches!—and Harrow is clearly having a lot of fun subverting the tropes of witchcraft with some legitimately clever twists. I know Harrow can do better because she already did in The Ten Thousand Doors of January, but if any of what I’ve said here appeals to you, and if you like your prose more lush than functional, The Once and Future Witches will likely be a winner for you.

The writing in "The Once and Future Witches" is stellar, the storyline is provoking, the character list a mile long, and the ultimate message "GIRL POWER!". While this book is considered fantasy, I believe many girls and woman will be able to relate to any of the three strong sisters. Five stars. READ IT

Alix E. Harrow is back with another escape into the past, infused with the magic. The year is 1893 and the town is New Salem. Old Salem was burned, supposedly with all the witches in it, although vestiges of witchcraft have lived on. Women fight for suffrage, and many fight for better labor conditions. In a search for power to make change, the Eastwood sisters, Bella, Agnes, and Juniper, unite to bring back the Lost Way of Avalon. This is not without complications, but they find help in some wonderful allies. These characters are the book's greatest strength. They are all complex, and each of them grows over the course of the book. There is romance, and there are even some familiar tales mixed in. The plot gets twisty, though, so this book is best read in longer sittings in order to understand how all of the moving parts are working together. This was a much-welcomed escape read.

The Once and Future Witches is my first Alix E. Harrow book. I get it now.
If this were a true review I would give this book a 3.5, but I opted to round up for reasons I will go into later.
The book takes place in 1893 and follows three sisters (Belladonna, Agnes, and Juniper). The witches of history have already been burned. The "ways, words, and wills" of witches have been scattered and lost over time. The Eastwood sisters had a wonderful grandmother who shared more spells than the average family member. Circumstances of youth and a tough dad separated the sisters. Yet they are united by chance and their futures and the futures of all witches are thrust into their hands.
There aren't many "witch stories" out there with full flushed out stories. We all know the fairy tales and songs about them, but I don't think I've ever read something so complete about a witch or the witch tales. The only thing I can compare the book to is "The Crucible" and that's a period of my high school required reading that I would rather forget.
Harrow is a very skilled author and wordsmith. The characters and the way the words come together are lovely. The book is also told in a rotating third person perspective that gives life and feeling that I didn't expect in a story like this.
I love the way she pulls the themes together. The literal sisters, community of sisters, and women. The story is told alongside a town's fight for women's voting rights. The comparison between voting and witch ways was such a compelling and original idea for me. I so wished to see it continue through the book.
My biggest complaint for this book was the length, but I'm not sure if that could be cut without losing something to the story or the characters. Maybe it wasn't so much the length but the way the story is told. The point in the beginning of the narrative switches around several times. Maybe if some of the plots were more succinct or something.
It's such a good story. I had to round up because of it's originality, character development, and the writing itself. Harrow is fun and I'm glad to read it. Worth a casual read, but you won't be flipping pages constantly to find out what will happen next.

This book was received as an ARC from Redhook Books in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

At first I did not know what to expect as I read this book. Thinking that it was going to be a fantasy novel but it the plot took a new turn incorporating history with fantasy with women's suffrage and salem witch trials combining with the practices of witchcraft. Most of all, I love the sentiment of sisterly bonds and love James, Agnes, and Beatrice through these tough times of revolt and threats they had from everyone fighting their right to vote and threatening for their lives. A lot was learned throughout this book with a little added excitement.

We will consider adding this book to our YA collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.