I received an ARC copy of this book, and this is my honest review.
I DNFed this book at about 40%.
The main character, Bennie is incredibly flat and I couldn’t care less about her.
Motheater is a more interesting character, and I did sort of care about her, but all the questions about her are answered almost immediately in flashback chapters, which robs us of trying to figure out those questions throughout the book.
However, what made me DNF the book was the sloppy way that Appalachian Folk Magic and Appalachian styles of Christianity are dealt with. I don’t so much mind that Snake Handling Christians are described as existing before such things became popular, but Motheater’s father is repeatedly described as Pentecostal decades before the denomination existed- especially when various fundamentalist Baptists did exist them that could have been adapted for the purpose.
As a person from Appalachian who currently practices witchcraft largely based on Appalachian Folk Magic, the treatment of our traditions as the basis of the magic system in this book is incredibly sloppy. For example, Motheater refers to herself as a witch when women who practiced witchcraft in the era that she grew up in would have been offended to consider it witchcraft— it was simply what everyone did. You could change that, but you would need a reason for why the same levels of strict Christianity existed without the same taboos on witchcraft and witches.
Beyond that, practices clearly lifted from our folk Magic practices are used without understanding how they are used in real life to be able to translate that into fantasy. That’s why Motheater is constantly, constantly quoting Bible verses, sometimes for no reason at all. She uses herbs for cursing, but not the herbs I would use for cursing and not in any recognizable fashion.
In short, while the concept is really intriguing, the story itself badly needs the advice of current practitioners of Appalachian Folk Magic and historians of the tradition. I would hope that the author knows that current practitioners of these traditions exist, but it’s hard to tell based on the book.

This is the sort of debut novel that I like - I don't particularly like it on its own, but what's there makes me excited to see what the author does next. Motheater falls into that almost exactly - I'll mostly remember the vibes (Appalachia, hedge magic, queer love and friendships) and Codega's name. Bennie and Esther themselves are underdeveloped - Esther/Motheater we get the most of, but it's so scattered between timelines and within the novel itself that it doesn't really coalesce until the end, when it feels like too little too late. Bennie we know in the moment, but everything else is really nebulous which makes it difficult when we're supposed to feel that she's hurting becuase of things that happened in the past. The side characters are so bland that they almost aren't there, so it's good that we really spend most of the time with Bennie and Motheater.

I did really love how all of the magics tied together into something that utilized, at its heart, what people have faith in, what brings emotions to the surface for them. That Esther used scripture to access land magic, tying together a lot of practices and heritages into the land itself.

content warnings: depictions of abuse, animal death, character death, religious trauma, violence

first things first: i was really pumped when i read the preview, though not quite sure what to expect of it in the end. truth be told, it was way more magic(al) than i had originally thought - but that's not supposed to be a bad thing! i actually really enjoyed the way the magic was tied into the culture and surroundings, drawing its power from nature - because i'm a firm believer that that's where magic should always have its roots.

having said that: i don't quite know how to feel about the protagonists. for one, there's bennie who you think you have figured out until she pulls a move that's got you all confused. one moment she's full of sorrow and the next she's estatic. not always but it happened enough for me to notice. then there's motheater, or esther, who is this mysterious witch from way back. i liked her character as a whole but did find myself stumbling over certain phrases - at one point she knows about modern thing A, but in the next moment she's asking what A is.
the rest of the characters (except jasper and zach) are kind of bland. you don't even really get to know kelly-anne even though she's the sole reason for bennie acting the way she does - up until she isn't.

to make things easier, let's weigh them in pros and cons.
pros:
- the way the magic was portrayed as well as its roots being found in nature
- the way culture played into this story from both an outsider's as well as insider's pov

cons:
- the dynamic of the characters given they more often than not felt flat and somewhat underdeveloped
- the ending, somehow, seeming rushed when the pacing was really slow to begin with

overall, i did enjoy reading this and am very grateful to both NetGalley as well as the publisher for providing me with an ARC.

3.5/5

This takes a bit to get into because you aren't entirely sure what kind of story you're in for, but it's worth sticking it out because Bennie and Motheater, and everyone around them, are such a gripping group of people to read about.

Bennie is trying to bring down White Rock mining because her best friend disappeared in Kire mountain, as have many others. Just disappeared. While driving she sees something in the river and ends up pulling out a strange woman who only knows herself as Motheater and that she's the Witch of the Ridge.

Slowly, Motheater regains her past and her magic, how she ended up trapped in Kire for over a century, and it also reveals what's happening in Kire now. Along with Bennie's ex Zach, a lifetimer with historical ties to the mountain and Motheater's past, they find a way to stop the death of the humans, while also still trying to find a way to protect the mountain.

I love Motheater's magic. The ties to nature at it's most beautiful as well as its most brutal. The way emotions fuel it, and the way she conceptualizes her power and how to talk about it. This has a very bittersweet ending as a whole but the bond Bennie and Motheater build changes Bennie in ways she could never have imagined, and didn't know she needed.

Another journey into the magic of Appalachia, where if you watch the mountain long enough you'll see it breathe.

[thank you to netgalley and kensington publishing for this advanced copy!]

a highly "ok" book--really just lacking in tension, natural relationship building, or interesting characters. everything looks and feels cool, but there's not a real draw to any of it. the first couple chapters feel like they're high-speeding you so the plot can get started, but once it does everything just grinds to a halt! while the premise is interesting, it often felt like the best thing about the book--and when the book couldn't deliver, it just fell flat. i see the themes, but i don't feel them.

Thank you to Netgalley, Kensington Publishing, and Linda H. Codega for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I want to write this review as objectively as possible as someone that (I believe) is not the target audience for Motheater. Although it has been tagged as a fantasy novel, I felt it had more in common with literary fiction than traditional fantasy - magical realism, perhaps. Perhaps because of this, and my lack of experience reading this genre, I had a hard time parsing out what the author was trying to convey to me. I read a political think piece (which I greatly appreciate - this pulled my rating up from two stars) on environmentalism but could not comprehend why the two main characters continued to interact with one another after Bennie had such polarising, disturbed views about Motheater at the beginning.

It was also quite a repetitive book, honing in on making the same point over and over that I found myself feeling confused and searching for a secret meaning in the repetition (there wasn't one) because I assumed the author must have been doing this intentionally. I mark this down as the writing style being a miss for me - I observe that others have responded well to it and greatly enjoyed it, so this is a personal preference.

At the end of the day, I personally didn't enjoy it, but I believe others will if they like litfic with a dash of horror. It's an ambitious debut that has a lot to offer its readers.

DNF at 30%. This book was odder than expected and I could not get into it despite several attempts at the book.

I really enjoyed the concept of this book, but ultimately I felt like the execution fell a bit flat. Things happened without the natural buildup that makes it impactful. However, I absolutely adore anything about Appalachian witches and sentient mountains, so I still enjoyed it!

Beautiful writing and descriptions, though it reads more as a lit fic than a fantasy to me. I haven’t read until now a book set up in the Appalachian Mountains and I really wanted to. I hoped it would be eerie, weird and witchy. And it was, except it had a lot of mentions of scripture and that took me out of the story every time. Another minus from me would be the romance in the last few chapters. While I appreciate the representation, the romance felt a bit unnecessary and it didn’t feel like it did anything for the story. I appreciated the Historical Notes at the end, especially as this was the first time I ever heard about snake handling churches.
My favorite quote: “I feel like I’m underwater. It’s familiar, I know what water feels like, but I’m still not made to breath it.”

Thank you NetGalley for providing me an ARC.

The potential is there, but DNF'd at roughly 50 pages.

At first, I found the story of Motheater compelling; a powerful mining company causing mayhem and death in rural Appalachia, and a witch from the past thrust out of the mountain to help save the day. It even takes in the same mountain range where I spent my college years, and where my partner grew up. But it was either the format I was given or a lack of in-depth editing that compelled me to DNF--words were missing or some sentences seemed to need punctuation to make sense.

I also found our main character rushed into accepting Motheater and her magic far too quickly, and the conflict between other characters laid at our feet without having to work for it. There were so many analogies, metaphors, and symbolism specifically about the mountains that were integrated into almost every descriptive paragraph that I was quickly annoyed by it. For me, less is more--the mountains shouldn't have to convince the reader of their magic with the right wordsmith, and the overutilization felt overbearing and redundant. Codega seems like they're trying to force us to understand that the mountains are a living thing, a wild, magical entity, with all the subtlety of a megaphone.

Motheater felt way too comfortable in a modern world despite her history, and Bennie failed to ask very important questions right out of the gate or have any serious sense of hesitancy towards a half-drowned woman she found in the woods. I needed more buildup, more tension, and more dilemmas. The first 50 pages went from Motheater's discovery in a creek to meeting ex-boyfriends in the next chapter, pacing so quick that I felt I was being fed a plot rather than guided on a journey. I could also clock the potential implications of romance between Bennie and Motheater right away, and for a story like this, it read too obvious and beside the point if it came to fruition.

I read that Linda H. Codega is a hiker and Southern transplant, but if I hadn't checked, I would have thought they weren't from the region. Not that this is a negative, as plenty of Southern and non-Southern writers alike have written about rural Appalachia successfully. But the depiction of the holler, the culture, and the Blue Ridge felt almost like a cliche. I feel like with some more editing this novel could really shine.

I was so excited to read a queer Appalachian fantasy, the types of books I so desperately want to see more of. But for now, I will not recommend this novel. However, I do hope to give Codega another shot in the future, as I see a lot of potential in their storytelling and voice.

Thank you to Kensington Publishing, Erewhon Books, and NetGalley for the eARC copy of the novel. It's always a pleasure.

This story almost felt like it went nowhere. Told in two timelines, Motheater and Bennie are trying to fight the powers that be from taking advantage of this small town and its people. Ultimately they both fail in trying to take down the mining corporations, and the mountain just takes care of itself.

The relationship between the two felt less like romance and more like forced proximity without the chemistry. Given that most of the modern timeline is told from Bennie's pov and Motheater just seems fixated on her current situation, we really only get one side of it and it falls a bit flat.

The writing had a nice flow with just enough Appalachian twang that made it feel genuine to the area. The idea that a town would have a Neighbor (witch) who would be shunned until she's needed feels depressingly accurate. Overall, the relationships between the townspeople felt realistic.

Thank you to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Following one woman’s quest to bring the mining company to justice for a raft of missing and dead miners, and the ancient witch who is set to take revenge for the misuse and destruction of the mountains, this book was an atmospheric and evocative folk horror, with a touch of southern gothic and rural-life in decline. It mixes the modern woes of Appalachian life (such as addiction and an overreliance on mining) with ancient problems, and the age old question of who owns the land and who has the rights to pillage it.
I really enjoyed the setting and writing, gave an almost gothic feeling. The way that the story is drawn and the picture painted through the author’s phrasing is very well done. The setting and story felt unique, melding a fantasy version of a small Appalachian town filled with magic and the reality of mining and the dangers of having a small town reliant on a large company that reinvests its profits elsewhere. There is the added worries of being a queer, black woman in a majority white and conservative town - and a newbie to the town at that.
Motheater as a character was fascinating and really enjoyed her perspective and PoV chapters, and the unknowns about her and her past is really what kept me invested in the book. Her role as natures protector, as well as the bargainer for human life, was an interesting and unique take on a witch. However, I think it is the modern aspect of the book that lets it down for me - Bennie was not a character I enjoyed or particularly connected to. Her motivations sometimes felt off (such as her attraction to Motheater, and how there was not enough time given to develop that thread - it felt very insta-lovey). Altogether, this works as a creepy and atmospheric gothic folk horror, with a unique take on nature’s revenge. It was a quick read with a big impact.

As the release date is quickly approaching, I was planning to read all day, stay up through the night, and finish it before the “deadline.” However, while I greatly appreciate the ARC and want to give a proper review, I realized I’m not engaged enough with the story to *want* to stay up to finish it. I DNF’d at 35%.

This book has some great themes: we’ve got a witch fighting corporate capitalism, an anti-industrialism and colonialism story, an environmentalist message, exploration of generational trauma, and a love letter to the land of Appalachia.

However, the way it’s written just wasn’t for me. While I can appreciate and enjoy stories with unlikable characters, they made this one difficult to be immersed in- I think the best character was the mountain (which might or might not be alive and killing people). There is also a lot more religion than I was expecting, and I think my lack of knowledge here separated me from being able to truly appreciate parts of both the prose and the plot.

I feel that I could recommend this book, but it just wasn’t for me.

Motheater was unlike any of the books I have read recently. While I enjoyed most of it, at times I felt lost. The plot is unique, the setting fantastic, and the characters strong. The writing was wordy at times and I kept confusing the mountain name with the town name. which did not help things. I loved the Appalachian witch parts, to me that was where the book shines. I also liked the relationships between Jasper and Esther and Bennie and Esther. Fantastic stuff. As I said, I was sometimes confused and tried my best to infer what was happening. All in all, this is great and I can't wait to read more by this author.

This book was good! I liked it but didn’t love it. I definitely see potential in it and look forward to seeing what else the author does.

A powerful tale of magic and pain in Appalachia, this story follows two women, one Neighbor and one neighbor, as they reckon with old injuries and megalith consequences in this fictional western Virginia.

I absolutely loved this book and the characters! I never would have thought I’d read a book that tackled environmental issues in a fantasy manner kinda like magic realism. And including some Appalachian lore! This was beautifully written and well thought out. I loved the way Bennie was growing into herself and accepting who she is without fearing whether or not she will be pleasing to others. And I loved seeing how Motheater came out of her shell. There were definitely parts of Bennie and Motheater that had my heart doing lil flips.


*I received a free ARC from NetGalley*

bittersweet one, and oh my, was I right.

A very beautifully written story about faith, love and desire to protect what to stand for.

At 30% I was like what else has to happen in this book, we already understand had happened, but the way we came to know Esther view of the events, little by little, her relationship with her faith, Jasper, Kiron and Kire is... breathtaking.[ I just wished I had know more about what happened to Kiron (and Jasper's father and Julian especially) after she was forced into the mountain.

Bennie, although have quite irritated me sometimes with her indecisionnes about how to she was feeling with the whole story happening to her, have grown found to me.[ And I kinda really wished she had made a diferent choise in chapter 36.

The only reason it's not a 5 star read for me is because everything is kinda of sorted out and just told to us in the last chapter. And the second to last one did deserve a in time description to its following.

Again, was a ending I kinda was expecting, but still wouldn't mind getting the live reaction to it instead of a told one.

The ARC I received did not had content warnings, but these are the ones if found during the reading:

-Blood;
-Animal Death (descriptive, in page, by humans);
-Aggression;

Thank you Kensington and NetGalley for the ARC!

While this was an interesting idea with intriguing concepts, the book fell short for me. It was slow in areas and felt like I was dragging my feet through the mud of the prose and plot. This book was definitely more a paranormal/horror with elements of folk rather than a fantasy book and I can see a lot of fantasy fans picking this up expecting something different only to be disappointed. From a folk horror side of view, it excelled in that area, I loved the ideas of female rage and nature fighting back against capitalism and corporation.
Overall, I did enjoy the read, it could just have used a bit more tension and drama!

Thank you NetGalley and Linda Codega for the e-arc!

I loved the premise of Motheater - a witchy historical fiction fantasy written in third person with dual pov split between present day and the mid 1800s. I enjoyed the personification of the mountain and the themes of magic vs industry.

However, the book fell flat for me. The pacing of the story and characterisation of the people were off. There were so many repetitive phrases and unnecessary scenes. The use of Christianity with the magic also didn’t quite work and the love felt a little forced (and unnecessary) for both couples. I really had to push myself not to dnf it. Such a shame as I had such high hopes.

Perhaps a re-write with further editing might push this into the 4 star range?