Thank you to the Book Club Girls for the early read. I was able to get this from my library in audio and really enjoyed reading and being able to listen to this book. I was stuck on the barbells issue though. She put down her 10 pound barbells (they are heavy and long)? Or is it dumbbells? Anyway with that aside loved the storyline, the plot, the characters and of course the narrator January LaVoy! She does a great job as usual narrating..The author told a great story revolving around the change women face as they age (embrace that change). If only that could be the way of it. LOL Grateful that I could listen and read since I just had to see what happened and wow I was not disappointed! Will recommend.

I’m absolutely FLOORED by this novel! A raging 5 stars and new all time favorite for me. Revenge? Modern day setting with women who have witchy powers? A small town mystery? Strong social feminist commentary?
If the synopsis turns you off but the themes I mentioned are up your alley then PLEASE give this book a chance!!

Even at nearly 500 pages I wanted to remain in these women’s lives. Harriett is my new hero and the twists throughout the novel are perfection. Every woman’s story is explored upon mention which is something I adore in novels!

Cons:
This is a bittt of a slower read if you’re used to quicker mystery/thrillers. You’re going to want to absorb every word but the story moves quickly enough and the pacing is perfect.

There are A LOT of characters to keep track of. If you’re not used to that or feel overwhelmed, jot notes to reference. Don’t let that intimidate you though!

I loved it! This new genre - PWF - Paranormal Women's Fiction is so much fun! The group of women in this book are like superhero vigilantes. I can relate to so many obstacles that they faced too, unfortunately. Tread lightly around them though, because they will dish out vengeance if they see something that's wrong in their eyes whether it's truly evil or simply petty. I think we've all wished we could do that a time or two!

Yaaaas!!! Completely devoured this fabulous novel full of female friendship, crone wisdom, and empowerment. Highly recommend.

I. Seriously. LOVED. This. Book! It felt lengthy and weighty, I loved that a time in a woman’s life that feels so much like an end was just a beginning for Jo, Nessa, and Harriet. They evolved into even more kick ass women and took care of an issue that occurs entirely too often! I wish that the real world worked just like this book. The author is one helluva writer and I was sucked in from beginning to end!

This book is all over Goodreads and Bookstagram. The hype is legit. If you love women with supernatural abilities who enact revenge on those who behave badly, while also solving a murder mystery and finding strength in themselves…well, look no further. This is the book for you.

Here’s the quick synopsis: Harriet, Nessa, and Jo are all strong women, in their prime, working through what life has thrown their way. Harriet, recently divorced, is nurturing wildness in herself and the plants in her garden. Nessa, a widow, has an innate emotional connection with others. And Jo, the breadwinner for her family, is formidable when it comes to her physical strength. But they don't just have normal talents - these are supernatural powers. Ones that cause others in the community to whisper that at least one of them is a witch. Abilities that lead them to discover the body of a dead girl, brutally murdered, in a gated, elitist island community just outside of the city limits of their hometown. These three women bond together to find the killer, and realize that it’s not just one girl. Someone is kidnapping and killing girls. And these women will do whatever it takes to find out who and give them their own kind of justice.

This book gets it right on so many levels. It's a revenge fantasy filled with supernatural feminist power. Each female character is fully developed, and I loved Harriet, Nessa, and Jo, each for different reasons. The friendship they develop throughout the story and the way they lean on each other felt natural. I don’t have any supernatural abilities, but I could relate to these women, to the dread of getting older, the cold fear you feel as a mom when you think about your daughters in the world, and the measures you would take to protect the ones you love.

So yes, just read this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for an advanced copy of this book.

Three women all find their power as life changes around them. Nessa's husband has died, daughters gone off to college, and she is now alone in Long Island. Alone, except for the voices. Harriett's career and marriage exploded in stereo, and she hasn't left the house since, as the brambles outside do attest. Jo has wrestled with her body for three decades, and menopause is the fiery cherry on top of her audacious travails, yet somehow, she is also stronger. The voices of the dead guide Nessa, Jo, and Harriett to the body of a teenage girl. Dead sex worker, or somebody's brutally murdered daughter? The trio believe it's the latter, and begin to follow the clues up the chain to Long Island's wealthy elite. It's time for powerful women to set some ground rules for those who believe that none apply to them.

Women and their bodies are powerful. That is the message I felt coming out of reading this book about three women reaching the latter part of their lives, and finding loneliness, disappointment, and rage. Each of Nessa, Harriett, and Jo represent different aspects of being a woman, and their experiences are sharpened against the wrongs they observe being done to women around them, some younger than themselves. While the story itself is engaging, and interesting, the star of the show are the characters, their biting humor, and how their investigation also offers insight to the stories of other women. I found it very compelling that I could be nodding my head in agreement one minute, howling with laughter another, and then experiencing tears on the next page.

In essence, this story is as much about the plot and its characters as much as it is about womanhood, and the agonizing reality of it. The pain and the struggle of what society expects, and family, and sometimes those who call us friends, and how that often weighs like a load of bricks upon our minds and hearts. The message that I received is that women at any age can make a difference, for it is our long-suffering nature that also gives us strength when we need it. I thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed reading The Change, the story of three women fighting for justice for a woman that the community is too quick to write off as not worthy of it. Recommended for readers who appreciate stories about mature women, biting insights about social norms and expectations, magical powers deriving from the nature of a woman's body, and women who band together to fight for other women, and their community, together.

How ironic that while reading The Change, the supreme court decision to possibly overturn Roe vs Wade was leaked. If only Harriet, Nessa and Jo were here to help. Talk about women taking control and pushing men out of the way! The Change is fiction but there is so much truth in the premise of the story. Misogynistic males with very little regard for women are still the status quo in today's world. Kirsten Miller has created a story about women that have simply had enough. Throw in a little magic and you have a phenomenal book that is impossible to put down. I tried to find a stopping point so I could, you know, go to the bathroom or sleep but that proved difficult. I was anxious to finish the book but hated it when I did. All I can say is The Change is so filled with mystery and plot twists that I will definitely read it again. I could have missed something!!
I voluntarily received a copy of this book from Netgalley.

This is the thing justice fantasies are made of!! Brilliant characters that were so different but so wonderful.

In a world where Jeffrey Epstein's and Ghislaine Maxwell's exist, the power that women like Kristen Miller give back to the everyday woman is nothing short of magical!

I was hesitant to pick up this book because I thought it was going to lean more into the postmenopausal rah-rah women getting powers thing, but this defied my expectations at every turn!

You know whenever there are three women involved there will most likely be some shenanigans going on. This book just screams “woman power” and it’s very likely some men may be offended by how they are portrayed. However, women will just love this book!

Three very different but professional women have reached the age where they go through the dreaded “change.” The change that renders some women invisible, overlooked and discarded. But for these three women, going through the change was empowering and a time in their life where they each came into their own.

They meet by a series of random encounters and at some point in the story become amateur detectives trying to solve a series of killings in their town. Together with their new-found power, they set things to right, while getting revenge on some ungentlemanly men.

This was such a fun, wild read! Don’t let the page count turn you away. This is a book you will plow through without noticing the time.

Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for allowing me to read an advance copy. I am happy to give my honest review.

A feminist revenge fantasy with mystery elements.

Three women past their prime, according to the world at large, and menopause is not appealing. As each experiences loss of one kind or another, they find that they have developed some interesting abilities with their freedom. Living in Mattauk, they often see, but rarely interact, with the super wealthy who live on Culling Point overlooking the ocean. The women soon learn that with their new power comes responsibility. Their mission is to rid their community of the evil that has resulted in missing and dead young women.

I liked this well enough but am sort of tiring of the angry women vibe that involves vigilantism and murder. It's one of those where all but maybe one or two men are horrible and, despite everything going on in the news, I do not actually feel that way. In order to fully buy into this story, you have to suspend disbelief long enough to accept that the three main female characters in this story have unusual supernatural skills that come in handy when they are investigating and taking care of business in their little town. It was hard to feel sorry for the creepy men, but definitely they were stereotypical as in every book like this you read about old rich men abusing young girls. Harriet, Nessa, and Jo narrated arts of the novel so each was unique in her point of view and interesting in the way they dealt with their age and stage of life.

So, I'm glad I read this and feel like it will appeal to a certain female fan base as mature women are portrayed as strong and powerful characters capable of living life large. Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this e-book ARC to read and review.

This was good but too many girls and women died in it for this to really be the revenge fantasy against misogyny I wanted/was promised. But I ultimately love revenge in books, I <b>love</b> it. In real life, so much bad shit is happening and I really have to rely on karma because there’s not much I can do, but here all bets were off.

The ending took the wind out of my sails because I had kinda seen it coming and I’m like 50% on board with it and 50% miffed because it just rankled these old bones. One of the deaths was also disappointing because it wasn’t as climactic as he deserved.

I understand the Witches of Eastwick comp but honestly I really get caught up on the devil impregnation there. This felt more like a super heavy but also satisfying Practical Magic situation. There were paranormal/fantasy elements that kept the plot interesting and they took a little while to get used to, but I do think they added a necessary element. I love watching villains get what the deserve but I’m notorious for not being able to handle them villain beforehand. I think this toed the line pretty well and I wasn’t angry per se but just really sad at times.

The one truly gruesome thing we first hand witnessed (that had me fist pumping) was ruined. Bad Men were killed but in a more underhanded way? I guess I wanted more man tears and man suffering because of all the pain they caused. It was also just really fucking sad. I think most of them knew who/what was killing them but I wanted it crystal. I also don’t think some of the workplace fuckers got enough of their karma kisses. Chase also I think deserved more suffering but I could be projecting.

Some reviews were mad at the man hating. Personally, there was not enough man hating. As of 5/6/22, I really fucking hate the overall idea of men right now and I definitely read this hoping see a world that’s taken more action than the one we’re in. I’d say the book delivered but it also left much to be desired. Like I said, there was still way too much death of good people to truly help release my rage. I wanted to be Elmo surrounded by flames. Flames. Flames on the side of my face.

There are so many content warnings I don’t even know where to begin. I’ll try to compile a comprehensive list but know that it deals with heavy shit. You also got POVs from some of the victims and that just made it all way worse. Think Epstein. And all the fucked up shit surrounding that. I’m pretty sure that’s at least part of the inspiration here. I mean I’m more than sure but gotta leave room for Jesus.

Overall I do recommend this, I think it would be a great bookclub read as I want to discuss it!! But be mindful of the heavy content warnings and it may be a little raw at the current moment in time.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Wow, what a rollercoaster.

I'll admit, I had no idea what this book was about when I first started. When I got an email from Netgalley, recommending this book to me less than two weeks before Pub Day and describing it as Big Little Lies meets the Witches of Eastwick, I was instantly intrigued. But that was the extent of my pre-reading knowledge.

The Change follows three women, Harriet, Jo and Nessa. All have gone through 'the change' as their approach their midlife. Each one has developed gifts or powers that arrived the same time as the menopause. In their small beach town on Long Island, they discover the body of a teenage girl. Nessa, her gift being the dead visit her, says she saw others out in the ocean, where their bodies must be. The police write off the dead girl as a sex worker who overdosed, but the trio believes something more sinister is going on. With their new powers, they are going to figure it out and they aren't going to stop until the men responsible are taken down.

This book has a little of everything... it's a feminist manifesto, a mystery, a thriller, fantasy, drama and even a little romance thrown in. The themes of the book are scarily timely in a world where women's rights are being stripped away, there is a big focus in the book about women being at the mercy of men and never given the same rights, respect and more. The book gives us backstory on each of the women and who they were before they had their powers and how they came to develop. The ending was a bit of a twist. I had a sense that some thing wasn't quite as it seemed, but was shocked how it came to fruition. My biggest complaint was the ending. I think there could have been a little more in the chapter with the aftermath. It seemed to end abruptly in my opinion.

Thanks to netgalley for providing me with the ARC of this fantastic book. This is the story of three women who discover their powers upon reaching midlife, rather than seeing it as a crisis. Someone has been killing teenage girls in an affluent area of Long Island. Nessa can hear and see their ghosts calling. Jo, a local gym owner, and powerhouse in her own right befriends her, and along with Harriet and her wild garden full of poisonous plants, who the locals call a witch, the three set out to right the wrongs being committed in their neighborhood. There are magical elements, cover ups by the local police, and trigger warnings for sexual assaults on minors. Despite the darkness, this story is light hearted and redemptive and a wild ride.

When I first saw a promotion for this book, it did sound interesting, but reading that it was of the fantasy genre, I questioned reading it. I typically do not read fantasy books. I took a chance on this book, and I am SO glad I did! It was one of the best books I have read this year, and I read a lot of books!

The Change by Kirsten Miller has it all! It does contain a bit of fantasy, but it is also a mystery, a love story, and a comedy. This is one of the few books that made me literally laugh out loud! I was hooked from page 1. I also loved how the author wrote chapters about the past and the story leading up to the actual story. I cannot say enough good things about this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins Publishers for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed above are my own.

The Change is a page-turning witchy revenge fantasy that is centered around three middle-aged women and the quest to find a potential serial killer. It's dark and funny and the woman power vibes are strong - great summer read!

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for this ARC.

Huge thank you to the publishers for allowing me the opportunity to receive an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review! The Change was extremely original and hard to compare to anything. I enjoyed the sassy ladies and the story was told so well! The world building and strong female characters was top tier!

I'm unfortunately the unpopular opinion when it comes to this book. I requested it initially because I kept seeing amazing reviews all over the place for it and I was in the mood for an addictive page turner at the time. The book started extremely strong for me. I loved the premise and the magical realism elements that come into play pretty early in the book. When the mystery was introduced I was hooked. The initial commentary about women and women in society was really important. However, once I got about half way though my steam and stamina for the book began to dwindle. I stopped caring about what was going to happen. The magical elements kind of disappeared and I wasn't as hooked or invested. This book is almost 500 pages and it was feeling extremely dragged out for no real reason. The mystery began to feel murky because there were too many people involved and the details sounded to cloud what was really important in the story. At the end I was forcing myself to finish and that's not what I want in a book that I'm supposed to be reading for fun. So as I said early it's unfortunate, but this book just wasn't what I was expecting out of it. Thank you so much Netgalley for providing me with the copy to read and review.

I didn’t know quite what I was getting into when I started this one, but it was fun! The Change is about three middle-aged, perimenopausal women who are coming into their full supernatural witchy powers. But it’s so much more than that. They develop an unbreakable friendship and team up to solve a mystery of missing teenage girls.

It’s feminist. It’s anti-patriarchy. It’s a mystery. It’s getting revenge on all the men who did them wrong. It was quite the fun female empowering book.

I will say I think it was a bit too long, coming in at just under 500 pages though.

This book was a ROLLERCOASTER. Described as Big Little Lies meets The Witches of Eastwick, this is an adult thriller where three women come together to solve the mystery of who has been kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and murdering teen girls in Mattauk on Long Island.

Each woman has a specific gift that has come about during their later years in life (the main characters are in their late 40’s). These gifts when they work together help them take down some pretty disgusting men.

As for characters, I thought that Nessa and Harriet were the real stars. While Jo is the third of the trio, I don’t really feel like we got to see her use her gift enough. Nessa’s and Harriet’s were such a HUGE piece of the story, while Jo’s didn’t shine quite as much.

The story had so many twists and turns, and I did start to suspect the outcome, but not until about right before the end.

This book focuses on uplifting women has some real kickass female characters. I could totally see this as a TV miniseries, and I LOVED Harriet’s character. A true queen.

I thought the story was great, though the dialogue was a bit stiff and unnatural in some areas and it felt a little too formal. I don’t know if that was to help us suspect certain people because they were lying?

Overall I thought this was a great read. It’s a little slow to start, but I loved how the author gave us chapters from ALL different character perspectives, that really strengthened the storyline. The fantasy elements in this were subtle, but worked really well in the real world setting.