My rating: 3 of 5 stars--

VenCo's strength was in its characters. Specifically, many strong, yet quirky, women who've faced various challenges. 30-something Lucky St. James lives with her grandma--who has dementia--and works at a video rental store. Her flighty, Native mother died when she was young, and her dad died of an overdose before she was born. One day Lucky finds a spoon that leads her to a group of witches who are assembling a coven while being hunted by a powerful, semi-immortal witch hunter dude. It's up to Lucky and Stella to find the final missing witch in a race against time.

I love Dimaline's Marrow Thieves books and wanted to love this one too. But for me, the plot was lagging and predictable. Likewise, I found the ending similarly unsatisfying, besides the reveal of one of the twists. I enjoyed meeting these interesting characters, but I definitely struggled to get through this book.

Many thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: mind control, sexual manipulation

I guess I should preface this with, this is my first adult novel of Dimaline's that I've read. I loved THE MARROW THIEVES and HUNTING BY STARS (both of those were 5 stars books for me). I knew this would be different in ways since it's written for adults and is not a YA novel, but what captivated me in Dimaline's writing in those books was missing in this one. It took 30% of the way in to VENCO before I started to want to continue reading this book - I was hooked from then on, but I did struggle with the beginning. Once you get through the setting up parts of the plot, the story flows better.

VENCO is a book where there's a lot of traveling/waiting happening between events so it reads like nothing really happens (even though things are happening). I didn't love Lucky, I did absolutely adore Stella though (I want more of her story!). I felt like plot points between the Oracle and the witches forming the coven got a bit murky, as did the magic system.

This is a good read, and there will be plenty of readers who love it, it just didn't capture me like THE MARROW THIEVES (which is fine, they are two entirely different types of books).

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley and William Morrow in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars, rounded up for this entertaining take on witchcraft and friendship, and "hexing the patriarchy". VenCo is about a gathering of women into a coven. There are 7 witches to close the circle, and each woman must find a spoon that signifies her place in the coven, however there is an outside force determined to keep them from closing the circle before time runs out, an immortal witch hunter.

While we learn how each woman finds her spoon and is called to the coven, the main narrator is Lucky St. James, a young woman living in Toronto with her elderly grandmother Stella. The story is told in alternating viewpoints between Lucky, the witch hunter Jay Christos, and the other witches in the coven. Each character has a distinct voice, so I felt the story flowed well between each character.

This is a story about building your family and fighting the system that keeps women subservient to men. I had some niggles with a few plot points and situations, but overall, I enjoyed this book enough to round up to 5 stars. It reads quickly, and truly pulls you in and won't let you go until the final page.

Thank you to Book Club Girl, William Morrow, and NetGalley for the electronic ARC for review.

I am so excited by this book! I couldn’t get enough of the women led intrigue and witchery. If you like found family, mysterious backstory and generally agree with idea that women’s powers may have been suppressed because of patriarchy, put this one on top of your TBR.

VenCo has an opportunity to be a story with a bit of a supernatural element that brings a diverse group of women together against the patriarchy. Instead it feels aimless, leaving many potential storylines unfulfilled. The book starts with a trio of women – the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone – who are apparently concerned about getting a coven together in North America, and the increasingly short timeline in which to do so. Then they mostly disappear from the book except to (metaphorically) wring their hands about whether the coven will assemble in time. There’s really never any explanation in the book about why there’s a timeline for this.

Meanwhile in Toronto, Lucky, who hasn’t been nearly as fortunate in life as her name implies, discovers a spoon that triggers said coven to realize they may still meet their timeline after all, as it means Lucky is their next witch. Lucky is invited, along with her grandmother Stella, to Salem. She quickly discovers that it really isn’t for a job opportunity, but since her life hasn’t been going so well she decides, why the heck not? Now this could be the point where Dimaline goes full blown women power. Six of the seven women are together, they can look for the final witch together before the big, bad witch hunter comes to find them, right? Nope. After sending them off to a bar to get full blown drunk by a bartender that isn’t a witch herself but provides assistance to them, Lucky gets sent off on her own on a scavenger hunt to find the final witch. Since Stella is less than all there Lucky takes her along for the ride so she can keep an eye on her. Which she does not so fantastically when the two aren’t bickering with one another.

Soon the witch hunter is after Lucky, which the rest of the coven, safely scrying away (looking for the same spoon as Lucky) in their protected home, neglect to tell her about. Naturally this will lead to an epic showdown between Lucky and Jay, the witch hunter, right? Also nope. The ending of the book feels incredibly anticlimactic. There’s really no dynamic relationships in this story except for between Lucky and her grandmother. Which is really a shame. Many of the women in the coven are marginalized or abused women, so coming together as a unit to defeat the witch hunter would have been a better approach. Even a more good vs. evil dynamic between Lucky and Jay that built up of the course of the book would have been better.

It just feels like Dimaline had so many options in this story to elevate Lucky or the whole group of women, but she threw too much into the story and then chose the path that was the least interesting. A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I read this book right before Halloween and it fit the witchy vibe I was looking for perfectly. This book takes on a modern vibe on witchcraft and Coventry.

The premise of this novel sounded strange and fascinating, and that's pretty much what Dimaline delivered. I loved the Maiden/Mother/Crone triad at the center of VenCo, as a conceit, and the central characters were fascinating too. I did think the book was a bit long, but I understand the desire to have this world as fully fleshed-out, in all its weird nooks and crannies, as possible.

Super fun novel about witches being called from all over the world to join a powerful coven before it's too late. Lucky St. James is holding her life together in Toronto with a dead end job and slowly declining grandmother when she suddenly discovers a silver spoon marked "salem." It's not long before the two women start a journey to locate others with similar callings, all the while working against a dark and oppressive force. Sharp and witting writing, loving and kind relationships, Cherie Dimaline is a fabulous writer and this story will stay with you for a long time. If you believe in the power of female relationships, love a sharply written tale, or just want to go on an odyssey with some like minded women fighting the patriarchy, VenCo is for you!
#williammorrow

VenCo
by Cherie Dimaline
Fantasy Paranormal
NetGalley ARC

In Canada, Lucky lives with her grandmother who is showing signs of dementia, but Lucky doesn't want to drop the old woman into a home, even though they are going to be losing their apartment. But while doing laundry down in the basement she happens upon a hole in the wall, the entrance inside the locket metal cabinet. She goes inside and discovers an old spoon with a witch and the word Salem carved in the handle.

She found the sixth spoon, so she is the sixth witch and the coven brings her, and her elderly grandmother, to Salem and into their home, then sends the two on a quest to find the seventh spoon and its witch. But there is a single witch hunter, one of the originals, who still hunts.

This book started off interesting. A tunnel in the basement, cool. The spoons were an interesting talisman, but the story was too drawn out. Past interrupted as the five other witches told their stories on how they found their spoons, along with what they were doing while Lucky was on her quest; the Oracles (the Mother, Maiden, and Crone) and how they were helping; and the witch hunter, his past and his present.

Not scary, not really magical. It just was. It was a good idea, but there wasn't much substance. Instead of working the idea and putting more descriptions of the settings, characters, and magic itself, it was a bunch of ramblings of going here and going there, and this is how I found my spoon. For a moment I thought it was going to go on the porn route, but thankfully nope, but there is still some violence and suggestions, so not suitable for readers under fourteen.

Sorry to say, but this book was not a fun or great read. The blurb made it sound fun with some danger. But nope, I was bored.

2 Stars

New book by an author I really enjoy - Cherie Dimaline weaves vivid storytelling with relatable yet super boss characters. I am hoping that this will be a series, or at least we will have more books about the characters in this one.

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley.
Cherie Dimaline’s latest, Venco, is a book about witches. It also might be the first in a series. I have to admit that I was somewhat unsure if I wanted to read the digital ARC that was offered to me. There was something about the description that made me pause, it almost made Lucky, our heroine sound uninteresting.
Lucky St. James is anything but uninteresting.
Dimaline’s book is at first plush a mid-life coming of age story about a young woman who discovers that she is a witch and must work with the found family she gains upon this discovery. Lucky has problems, like most of us. Her mother died when Lucky was young, and currently Lucky must take care of her paternal grandmother, Stella, who is a lovely woman who is slowly losing her mind.
Lucky is a character you can’t help but root for her because she is messed up in a totally normal, everyday way. But she doesn’t wallow in the unfairness of her life, not really. Angry about it, yes, but she does not go “oh woe is poor me”. She thinks and grow, and this is important.
One of my “complaints” if that is the right word about Marrow Thieves was that it was very male focused, Venco is women centered and focus, connecting women from a variety of backgrounds. It is an intersectional feminist novel.
One of the things that stands is out that the cast is diverse across the board. The women that make up what is Lucky’s Coven comes from all walks of life and different backgrounds, and trans women are women in this novel unlike some other examples I could think of. It is important because of the acceptance that is showcased in the book. When Lucky is told that Freya was not always Freya, Lucky’s reaction is simply that Freya has always been Freya. It is great that in this book people are just accepted for who they are.
Some people might think or even claim that this book is anti-male because the villain is a man. But this would be incorrect. While the Coven is female and the book focuses on the treatment of women by men (we are all the witches that survived type of a thing) there are male characters who help and are wonderful. What I particularly liked about the villain is that Dimaline sets him up so that while you don’t like him, you can also see him as a product of the system as well. Additionally, she is playing with the idea of women as tempter, an idea that was used to condemn witches. Her inversion of it in the story is quite nice.
I particularly loved the fact that the maternal line and women of the paternal line are seen as equally important in the book. Too often in such novels it is the main character’s mother’s side of the family that gets the only magical focus. Dimaline reminds us that we have women on both sides of the family tree, even while showing us the lovely nature of Lucky’s relationship with her mother.
There are some passages in the book that are downright beautiful. There is one early on when Lucky is working home that is so magical.

I was really excited to read this book because the premise sounded so interesting and I typically love anything with witches or magic.

However, I really struggled to get through it, because the pacing felt inconsistent and the story was hard to follow at times. The action really started to pick up during the last quarter of the book and then ended abruptly with no real warning.

That being said, I understand that this is an ARC, and there may be further editing before it is published. I think that this could be a great book with some tweaking, and I hope that it gets there.

Thank you so much to William Morrow and NetGalley for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I started this book over and over, and I just couldn't get into it. The pacing didn't work with me and I found I wasn't enjoying the book.

LOVED LOVED LOVED. This was such a breath of fresh air. No cliff-hanger, just some good old-fashioned lady witches kicking butt.

I have been obsessed with Cherie Dimaline since I read The Marrow Thieves, and VenCo did not disappoint! The second I saw a Dimaline book about witches, I knew I needed it. VenCo surrounded themes of feminism, social issues, intergenerational trauma, and class divisions in a way that represents every marginalized group and is accessible for everyone– something I love about Dimaline’s books as a whole. The suspense of VenCo had me on the edge of my seat while the action had me falling out of it. Lucky’s relationship with her grandmother Stella is so beautifully raw with hints of back-and-forth, humorous banter that made me fall in love with their relationship and road trip adventures. Lucky’s coming of age storyline and her finding herself magically is something everyone needs to read. What would you do to protect those you love when they are all you have left?

Action packed. Adventure. Drama. Funny. Heartfelt. I NEED A PREQUEL/SEQUEL PLEASE!

Thank you NetGalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

VenCo was a delightful read that was different than what I expected from the marketing. When you read the title and description, it sounds like this is going to be a book about a business entity that is also a witch coven/conglomerate through the perspective of a young witch. Which sounds FASCINATING, and which is briefly touched on in the book, but this book is actually more about the journey of one young woman into witchcraft and magic and her own agency. It is told almost more as a traveling adventure narrative - taking place in eastern Canada, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Missouri and Pennsylvania (not in that order) in a beat up car.

I won't spoil it, but it's a really wonderful and heartfelt book, including the stories of many women and how they found themselves. It also seemed like the first in a series - there's definitely more story to be told. I do hope it includes more about VenCo itself!

I LOVED VenCo. This book is so unique and is such a fun (but also dark) read. This is not your average witchy novel; there’s an Oracle-who is actually three separate witches (the maiden, the mother, and the crone), there’s an immortal witch hunter, there’s a hunt to complete a coven of witches, there’s magical objects, there’s dreamwalking, and there’s an MC who needs to grow into herself and her power. I also love how the Oracle runs a successful female driven company (VenCo) which enables witches (women) to be successful in society. Really loved this and would recommend to anyone looking for a witchy read with strong female characters.