Writing: 5/5 Characters: 4.5/5 Plot: 4.5/5
Harrow is a fantastic storyteller! I very much enjoyed her The Ten Thousand Doors of January and this second novel is every bit as good if not better. Hooray!

The action takes place in New Salem in the 1890s. It’s a kind of alternate history where the women’s suffrage movement becomes entwined with a movement to bring back witching —benevolent witching being another route to to recover lost power for women in an era rife with female oppression. The three Eastwood sisters — bookish Beatrice Belladona, strong Agnes Amaranth, and wild James Juniper — are at the heart of the story as they work together with a growing sisterhood to bring back the Lost Way of Avalon.

It’s a book focused on women, with a smattering of male characters playing both utterly good and utterly evil men — a male version of the madonna / whore dichotomy. I love it! I also loved the way the embedded fairy tales — written by <i>Charlotte</i> Perrault and <i>Andrea</i> Lang — bore little resemblance to the fairy tales with wicked witches I’ve grown up with. A not so subtle reminder that history is written by the victor!

Lots of action but not the kind that bores me, plenty of interesting characters, and some fantastic malevolence captured in an evil creature of some inner complexity. She even manages to weave in lesbians and a trans person in a completely matter-of-fact manner. Lush prose suffused with magical realism and gripping from start to finish.

Great for fans of Alice Hoffman, Diane Setterfield, and Deborah Harkness.

Absolutely fantastic story! Ms. Harrow wraps you up in a story of sisterhood and female power that you could read over and over again.

A beautiful tale of solidarity and mutual empowerment. Lyrical and well developed, I can't wait to read more of Harrow's writing. A wonderful surprise.

It took me a bit to get into this story, but once I did, wow! It was a powerful story about women, strength and power. Beautiful, lyrical and woven around fairy tales, rhymes and myths. Strongly recommend.

Full disclosure: I received an advance copy of The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow from Redhook Books via Netgalley in exchange for possibly writing a review.

I've heard a lot of very good things about Alix E. Harrow and was really excited to get a chance to read this book. Witches often get a bad rap, but I think it is because they are often powerful women and that scares people. Not to say there aren't bad witches, but we'll get into that later.

This book takes place in an alternate past where the sisters Grimm write the fairy tales and witches are thought to be extinct. That is, until the sisters Eastwood decide to revive witchcraft to fight against a society oppressing women and an evil that is taking over their city. I enjoyed that each chapter starts with a spell or a fairy tale. You'll recognize many of these because in this world, fairy tales and nursery rhymes are used to surreptitiously pass on magic to the next generation. Maybe they are in our world too, but we've just forgotten?

This book isn't just about witches though. It is about the struggles of women, people of color, and the LGBT community, and the power we can yield when we join together to fight the systems that try to keep us marginalized. It's not without sacrifice. Some of the strongest magic requires blood.

Now about that bad witch....That the bad witch hates other witches so much that they want to completely eradicate them from the Earth is very telling. I'm sure someone could do a psychological profile on that. But here's what got me. Even though there are breadcrumbs throughout the book leading you to the identity of the bad witch, I was surprised that I didn't make the connection until the reveal. It's not often I am caught off guard like that. Well done, Alix E. Harrow.

The Once and Future Witches by Alex E. Harrow

The Once and Future Witches beautifully blends history, magic, and fairy tales. It tells the story of the three Eastwood sisters and their fight to help women gain power in a world that would keep them powerless. The story, which takes place at the turn of the century, is still relevant in today with people fighting to right inequality in our society.
Harrow does a beautiful job weaving in traditional fairy tales and children’s rhymes to support a history in which witches and magic exist. She creates rich characters that you love and root for and will miss at the end of the story. The story started slowly but quickly built momentum, and by the end, I couldn’t put it down. And throughout the writing is beautifully filled with hints of magic and poetry. 4.5/5

The Once and Future Witches by Alex E. Harrow will be published on October 13, 2020.

Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook Books for this eARC.

"Magic is the distance between what a person has and what they need...the thing that fills the slim gap between the possible and impossible, that makes a way when there isn't one".
-Alix E. Harrow

"...proper witching...only ever takes three things: the will to listen to it, the words to speak with it, and the way to let it into the world. The will, the words, and the way". "Everything important comes in threes".

Home was 23 acres on the west side of the Big Sandy River in Crow County. "Home was her sisters, once. But they left and never came back". James Juniper Eastwood, the youngest Eastwood sister, was wild and feral. On the day of the spring equinox of 1893, she jumped off a train 200 miles from home "with nothing but loose change and witch-ways in her pockets and no place to go". Her likeness was splashed on a train station poster. "Miss James Juniper Eastwood. Seventeen Years of Age, wanted for Murder and Suspected Witchcraft". Mama Mags (her grandma who raised her) said, "that temper will get you burnt at the damn stake...a wise woman keeps her burning on the inside". Juniper is angry "...mama died to soon...daddy did not die soon enough...". Her sisters left her and she's mad at herself for missing them. She feels compelled to attend the New Salem Women's Association Rally at St. George's Square...an urgent voice speaks. "Why should women wait in the shadows while their fathers and husbands determine our fate?"

Agnes Amaranth Eastwood, the middle sister, was strong and unflinchingly steady. She worked as a mill girl, cotton dust coating her tongue. She kept to herself. Mama Mags told her, "every woman draws a circle around herself. Sometimes she has to be the only thing inside it". Arriving at St. George's Square, she hears Suffragist Miss Cady Stone speak of women's rights. Women have been chattel in a man's world. A rally is under way to empower women by fighting for the right to vote.

Beatrice Belladonna Eastwood, quietly worked as a librarian at New Salem College. Beatrice, the oldest sister, understood the "weight of words...her black notebook, her most prized possession was "half-filled with witch-tales and nursery rhymes...stories she'll never tell and spells she'll never work...[looking] at the words, she can almost feel her sisters' hands in hers again". Leaving work, she is "following the witch wind to the middle of the square"...some sort of rally...a circling chant.

"The wayward sisters, hand in hand,
Burned and bound, our stolen crown,
But what is lost, that can't be found?"

On the eve of the spring equinox of 1893, the three Eastwood sisters were drawn toward the square and pulled into a spell after seven years apart. What did they see? "A sudden wind. Stars. A Tower. A doorway with certain words inscribed in it...an interlocking circle of three". "Witching and woman's rights... Suffrage and spells...they're both a kind of power. The kind we aren't allowed to have". Juniper said, "I saw...shadows moving in ways they shouldn't, twisting together. It was witching, but darker and stranger than anything Mags ever did". The Eastwood sisters needed three components in order to use magic and mayhem to upset a male dominated world. The will, the words, and the way. They had the will. "Are there words and ways waiting among children's verses...power passed in secret from mother to daughter, like swords disguised as sewing needles?"

A diverse cast of women, women from all walks of life...the mainly upper class Suffragette ladies...the Daughters of Tituba, a Black sisterhood of witches...familiars...and an occasional male supporter, will meet secretly and work for a better, more tolerant tomorrow. "We could win it all, stop worrying so much about what a woman should or should not do, what's respectable and what isn't. We must stand and fight, all of us together. 'All for one, and one for all'." This reviewer has merely touched upon the wonderment of reading "The Once and Future Witches" by Alix E. Harrow. This work of historical fiction is a masterpiece to behold!

Thank you Redhook Books and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Alix E. Harrow does it again. The Once and Future Witches is a beautifully written tale of women’s right, sisterhood, witchcraft, and survival. There’s just something about the way Alix writes that sucks you in from the beginning and makes it impossible to stop reading. Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this masterpiece

It's not that this book has a lot of curse words. It's just that, whenever they occur, it drags the quality of the reading down, in my opinion. I didn't finish this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book. I read this authors first book, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, and absolutely loved it. So was very excited that her second was going to be coming out barely a year later. A totally different type of story that combines suffragists and witches in the 1890's. It takes the themes of witchcraft, passion, anger, darkness and rolls them into one book. The story of three sisters who are separated by misunderstandings and are re=connected in New Salem. Its thought that witchcraft is nothing but charms and nursery rhymes...but the three discover that may not be the case.
This book is well written, it keeps your attention and I found i couldn't put it down. if stories and history of witchcraft are not for you then this won't be either. But its a great combination of historical fiction and fantasy. The characters are well developed and continue to develop through the story. If this is your kind of read, you will not be disappointed!! my rating is 4 but could be 4.5. Love this author!

The Eastwood sisters, Agnes Amaranth, Beatrice Belladonna, and James Juniper, have been estranged for seven years and are reunited in adulthood. Agnes is pregnant and working long hours for a man who takes advantage of his position of power over women. Juniper is on the run from the law for a crime she may or may not have committed. And Beatrice is a librarian at a college, where she stumbles upon a handwritten spell in a book of tales. They all have the will to make a change, and Beatrice has found the words. A tower appears in the square before the three sisters, Mother, Maiden, and Crone. So begins their journey to bring witching back to the world.

The story takes place in New Salem in the late nineteenth century. It weaves together the lives of a diverse and dynamic cast of characters from a number of marginalized walks of life. It's a beautiful blend of history and fantasy, with sympathetic representations of race and gender inequality, as well as LGBTQ+ stigma. I found the link between witches and voting rights especially powerful, as well as the message that power is not about how you begin, but rather how you choose to be.

A few months ago a friend recommended “The Ten Thousand Doors of January” to me, saying that it felt like something I would love. So I ordered it and added it to the (embarrassingly large and constantly growing) stack of books by my bed.
Earlier today I found myself without a book while I was out, so I decided to start reading “Once and Future Witches”. I love most things witchy, feminist or otherwise empowering, so it felt like a good choice. I did not expect to fall so entirely in love with it that I read it all in one sitting and found myself never wanting it to end. It was powerful, loving, and made me believe in magic. I looked up Alix Harrow afterwards in the desperate hope that she had written more books, and...discovered I already owned one! I’ve insisted my daughters both read Once and Future Witches and The Ten Thousand Doors of January just got moved to the top of my pile.

I really enjoyed “The Once and Future Witches” because the characters were so interesting to read about and go on adventures with!
Huge trigger warnings for abuse and neglect, which sometimes made it hard to read.
This story is about three sisters in the late 1800s that are brought up by an abusive father after their mother died giving birth to the youngest sister. The sisters are separated, but years later are brought together by a magical force. They start to use their magic to create change for women and to create a better life for themselves. Of course, evil magic is lurking and they must fight it to survive.
This story incorporates fairy tales, but twisted to connect to the sister’s tales. I enjoyed this part immensely.
At some points, it was hard to keep track of who was doing what, but everything tied up nicely in the end for the most part.
There is also a diverse representation of characters, which was excellent to see.
Overall, I definitely recommend this book, especially since it will be out in the fall and will be a great read for that time of year.

Alice E. Harrows, The Once and Future Witches is a celebration of the power of women. The Eastwood’s history of family magic has all but faded out until the three Eastwood sisters decide to resurrect it. Add that to the new suffragette movement and you have one rip rolling ride.

These are angry witches determined to reclaim their hereitage and it will be hell for anyone that gets in their way. The combing of women’s suffrage is brilliant. The characters are all well drawn. And it is a great commentary on the anger that women continue to feel at their marginalization. Bravo.

When I saw that Harrow was writing a Witch book, I knew I had to give it a chance. As someone who craves witches in every story, I was really excited about this one. The story itself was fine. I love women coming together, fueled by their rage and doing things about what the world is like, but I was struggling to read this book, just like I had struggled with ten thousand doors of January. I honestly think me and Harrow don’t vibe well. Maybe it’s the way the writing is, or maybe it’s something else. I can’t put my finger on it. I just struggled to get through this book for some reason and only managed it with shear determination.

“Witches-blood runs thick in the sewers, the saying goes...”
Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.
I am convinced Alix E Harrow is a witch, because her words are magic. The Ten Thousand Doors of January introduced us to Doors to other worlds, and The Once and Future Witches introduced us to the struggles of witch women, and the magic she brings to her stories always has the “will” behind it to make it real.
The Once and Future Witches follows the three Eastwood sisters: James Juniper, the youngest and most willful; Agnes Amaranth, the responsible middle child who took over the motherly roles; and Beatrice Belladonna, the eldest and most reserved. Chapters vary from each of their perspectives. They were raised in Crow Country by their abusive father and their witch grandmother, who taught them the words and the ways of witchcraft. The sisters were torn apart prior to the beginning of the book and are drawn back together (circumstance? Fate?) in the city of New Salem, where the women’s suffrage movement is taking off in 1893.
In New Salem, each sister has individual struggles of her own; Juniper running from a crime she committed, Agnes discovering she’s pregnant, and Bella’s forbidden attraction to women and the introduction of Miss Cleopatra Quinn.
After being inexplicably pulled back together, they start working towards a common and noble goal, fueled by their rage at the injustices done to them: women’s rights and the resurrection of witchcraft.
To bring back strong witchcraft, they’re chasing a legend: the Lost Ways of Avalon. Three witches, Maiden, Mother, and Crone, had fled to escape burning and collected all witchcraft in their tower, before supposedly being caught and burned and the tower lost forever.
They rally women around the city and form the Sisters of Avalon as a women’s group committed to witching and women’s rights, and make mischief and raise hell along the way, but their fight is constantly dogged by societal views, the hatred of witchcraft and any women with power, as well as a specific shadowy politician named Gideon Hill.
And while the novel is a well-known tale of subjugated women and their struggle for autonomy and freedom, the slightly alternate/adjacent reality only adds and heightens the story being told.
Alix E Harrow’s writing is beautiful, descriptive without excess, and timeless. She stunned me with her debut and this is no less as stunning and magical. I will continue to look forward to any stories she spins in the future.
And for those interested in rep: Juniper has a disability in the form of requiring a walking stick, Bella is a lesbian who starts dating a black woman, and there is a minor transgender side character.