This book was a pleasant surprise. The story grew richer and more complex as I read, and I absolutely love how Harrow has woven children's rhymes and songs into the words of magic. I read all the witch books, and this was a truly original take.

I'm being generous with my star rating because I don't think this is the book for me. (I'm not even adding it to my total books for this year because I skimmed 25% of it.)

When I requested it, I expected a fast-paced, thrilling book with rich lore. The lore is certainly rich--it's clear that Harrow did a lot of research on the period's social and economic issues and structure, and I appreciated the dedication to the system of magic and witchcraft--but it's an overwhelming amount of information. The undertaking is impressive, but Harrow tries to squeeze so much into this book with her dense, flowy prose that I couldn't keep track of everything that was happening. (Again, probably a personal issue.)

If you tend to gravitate toward that type of writing, give this a try. If your brain (like mine) can't handle it right now, skip it.

What an enjoyable read! I did find myself having a hard time picking it up, I would read a couple of pages and put it down. Somewhere around two hundred pages in though it thoroughly engrossed me. I loved all the aspects of this the world, the women the witches and the suffragette movement combine into one fabulous story. The twists, the characters and the relationships they formed along had be my glued to the last half of this book and crying at times. So beautifully done. I can't wait to read more from Alix E. Harrow!

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me for an ARC for an honest review.

Alix Harrow's The Once and Future Witches is a doorstopper, but it's full of so much inventive alternate witchy historical goodness that you don't notice it at all. Fully recommended for the feminism, the new slants on old stories, and everything else.

How can the Women's Suffrage Movement become a Women's Coven? Well.. you must read THE ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES to find out!

The ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES is not a book that I would typically be drawn to however, I am very impressed. I felt the pacing was excellent and the character development was superb. I was very interested in finding out about all of the characters.

I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone.. even those that might not think they would enjoy this "type" of a book.

Wonderful title in an alternate world. I loved the historical context of it and the "what could have beens" as well. Alix E. Harrow is one to watch!

I think my expectations were too high. It's about three sisters who are witches and feminism, so I thought I'd love it. It reminded me of Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood. Unfortunately, I didn't like the writing, it was a little too boring for me. I know I'm in the minority here, so if you are interested and you liked her previous book, then I'd recommend giving this one a try too.

I really enjoyed this book! I thought the plot with witches in New Salem was really intriguing and I was not disappointed. This book follows 3 sisters: the eldest, Bella, the middle, Agnes, and the youngest, Juniper. The three haven't seen each other for years only to be reunited by magic during a suffragette movement. Juniper is deadset on fighting for the return of magic and manages to convince her sisters as well as a slew of other women to join her cause.

I loved how Harrow weaved together themes of witchcraft, equality, and sisterhood. It was so interesting to see how different types of spells were hidden in folklore, songs, stories, even embroidered into clothing. I thought it was clever and pretty accurate to how information was passed on during this time period.

One of my favorite things was how the LGBT character was handled. I really love it when it's not a big deal in books that a character is gay. There were a few parts where it was brought up that others don't approve, but that makes sense due to the time period. However, for the main cast, it was just seen as another part of this character and they loved her anyways. It was casual as it should be.

There's also disability rep (one of the main characters). I thought it was nice to see because she was (in my opinion) the strongest person despite her disability.

It has been a little over a month since I finished The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, and the one impression that remains with me is the fact that the entire novel screams feminist revenge. Everything about the novel, from the reimagined fairy tales to the sisters' plight to the history of witches addresses the fact that men have been repressing women in some fashion for almost the entirety of history. It matters not that this is a fantasy where magic is a real thing. Ms. Harrow draws on every ounce of outrage women have been expressing for four years now to tell her tale.

This tale of Bella, Juniper, and Agnes is more than anti-misogyny. It is very much a story of the power of sisterhood and of togetherness as well as how the collective outweighs the individual. The sisters' story emphasizes that the ability to make even the simplest of changes can make the most profound of differences.

The most impressive aspect of The Once and Future Witches is the fact that most of the men we meet in the story are not overtly evil. In fact, they are very much like the men in our own lives, if the men in our lives had been taught since birth to believe that women are weak and powerless. If anything, this makes the women's plight in this universe that much worse because you want to hate the men for their contempt and abuses of power but cannot because humankind has always bullied those they perceive as weak.

This is Ms. Harrow's second novel, and she continues to impress me with her writing style. Her characters are amazing, as is her storytelling ability. More importantly, she is not afraid to put her characters in extremely tough, sometimes fatal, positions. There is no such thing as a simple and easy "happily ever after" in her novels, particularly in The Once and Future Witches.

In fact, Ms. Harrow places all three sisters into truly gruesome situations, to the point where one could almost issue a trigger warning for violence and gore. Yet, you can tell that she does not add violence for the sake of shock and awe but rather because the story demands it. Any violence the girls experience makes sense to their story, something I thoroughly appreciate.

The Once and Future Witches is one hell of a feminist story in which three sisters take on the patriarchy and ongoing misogyny. The fact that their fight involves magic as well as a battle against a supernatural evil entity is almost secondary to the story of women fighting together. The Once and Future Witches is certainly a story for 2020 and the Trump era.

<I> “Behind every witch is a woman wronged” <I/>

I actually enjoyed this a lot, its filled with adventure, unique takes on classic fairytales and beauuutiful writing. The bond between the three sisters was so pure and realistic it made me feel closer to my own sisters. If you like stories about powerful, fearless and stubborn witches, this book is the one. Also, I am obsessed with the way the queer characters were written in this book. Such subtle but specific details that stand out to the people it’s supposed to.

The pace of this book can be a little strange at times, especially the first 15% but keep reading! It’s worth it.

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Well, this book took me over half a month to read and I can truthfully say I'm glad and relieved to have finally finished it.

<u>The Once and Future Witches</u> tells the story of the Eastwood sisters and their reunion in the town of "New Salem" in the late 1800s. Upon rediscovering one another, they set out to work witchcraft and dismantle the patriarchy.

This novel had an interesting enough premise-a witch tale for adults, fun! I also loved that it was about three sisters and their lifelong bond (I am one of three girls in my own family). But this book was nearly 600 pages and a solid 300 pages too long. It dragged, and dragged, and dragggged. Very rarely do I find myself attached to characters at first in a novel, but then getting bored and tired of them and ready for their story to come to an end...I remember at the halfway point of this novel thinking "surely this is almost over..." Nope. Far from it.

I know this an extremely unpopular opinion. It's not that this book was necessarily poorly written, it was just much too long. It could have been shortened or made into two novels (are maybe even a trilogy), and I would have enjoyed it much, much more. I enjoyed the LGBTQ representation and didn't think it felt forced at all. But so many other aspects of this novel were just lengthy. The romances dragged on, the emotions dragged on, the flashbacks dragged on. I'm not one to shy away from a long book, but if you're going to expect me to read something that's 600 pages you better be prepared to keep me engaged and entertained the whole time!

There were once witches, and there will be witches again.

In 1893 (what is it with this year and literature??), there are no witches, but the three Eastwood sisters—broken apart and coming back together—are determined to make things better for womenkind. To regain the power that was lost, and the respect that had been buried down into the ground. But dark forces are afoot, and there are those who want to keep women weak and submissive...

Whew. Took until the 50% mark to get hooked, but hot damn was I hooked.

That we aren't going to get a damn thing by asking nice and minding our manners. That we need to make use of every weapon we have, or they'll beat us bloody in the streets.

In a slightly alternate United States, where the great witch burnings were a pretty damn big deal and made a lasting impression on society because they burned real witches and buried a real city, women have been subjugated by men and their innate ability to practice magic has been nearly eradicated.

However, some women want the right to vote and to have power in their society, and the only way to do that is to be able to vote.

This book hit hard when I read it back in...October (eek), as the Black Lives Matters movement had been going strong throughout the summer and many friends were protesting and participating and those on the streets were in danger of police brutality and white supremacist counteractions, and the election was hitting its high point of stress, particularly with the mass disenfranchisement of so many people of color, mainly Black and indigenous communities.

I did like that the book addressed the issues of inequality and lack of voice, and made it very clear that without equal standing in the law, the small will never be equal and will always be subject to abuse of power. Because power untested corrupts, and there are many who will use it for their advantage or to feel large.

Juniper thinks it must be that Susan Bee woman, a mummified Victorian type who wears an honest-to-Eve monocle and treats Juniper like a cleaning girl.

The ways the books sought to address the wrongs of the past—how the suffrage movement of the late 19th century and the early 20th century had sided with the white supremacy movement in order to gain ground among the bigoted voters, and how white women left Black women behind without a second glance.

There is the main gathering of official league of women's voters or whatever that Juniper joins, but those women do a lot of chatting, a lot of pamphlet folding and letter writing, but not a whole lot of doing. Until Juniper arrives, freshly wanted for murder and filled with vim and vinegar.

Juniper ends up organizing a march filled with the disaffected women of the league, and they end up breaking away from the league entirely after the march goes poorly and runs into festering resistance. I did like the those who joined Juniper were the ones filled with adventure and righteous anger, the ones who had been saddled in the sidelines themselves, whether because they were trans or too young or too delicate or not right in the ways that mattered to polite society. And the ones who stayed had good intentions (but good intentions don't mean anything), but were unwilling to take the next step and go hard or go home because they had a lot to lose in their individual positions and lifestyles, and they didn't want to lose what little power they had in the off chance it might help someone else rise.

What my mother taught me is this: you hide the most important things in the plafes that matter least. Women's clothes, children's toys, songs...places a man would never look.


All in all, this was a book about destroying the patriarchy (I apologize for my garbled review), in all forms the patriarchy takes, and all the little ways women are kept down. From clothes without pockets to clothes that constrain movement and force a woman's body into a shape pleasing to a man's eye, to marriage and gender expectations to submissiveness.

And it was about uniting women—and realizing that womanhood is not a monolith, which I felt was addressed fairly well in this one through the sisters and who the sisters recruited to their cause.

Juniper, the youngest and the maid aspect of the triad of witches, recruited the young, the impassioned, those filled with spirit and eager for a fight. She went here and there, rallying those to her cries, and she tapped into the passionate (and the rich, coincidentally). These were women who wanted the vote so they could stand on their own feet and loudly proclaim themselves to the world.

Agnes Amaranth, the middle sister and the mother figure, was the one who had gathered up those weaker to her and tried to keep everyone safe under her umbrella of protection until the fight had been smashed out of her and it was only herself to protect. But with the return of magic and Juniper, she begins to unbend, and through her the plight of the factory workers and working class women is seen. Isolated, standoffish, keeping to herself, but test her and she will unite and rally and fight. These were the women who wanted the vote to an extent, but mostly wanted the chance to straighten their spines and be free of harsh labor conditions, poverty and the whims of cruel husbands.

Beatrice Belladonna was the eldest and the crone figure, representing wisdom and the gathering of knowledge. She didn't unite so much as continued to stumble into the arms of Cleo, a Black journalist and something else. Beatrice represented the intelligensia (to an extent, as the librarians ultimately rejected her save for her boss, who represented those in the Underground Railroad) and a tentative alliance with the Black resistance. This area was a little less well done, mostly because Harrow had to tread really carefully to avoid the ~Magical N—~ trope, which...I'm not sure that she managed.

But the point with Beatrice was that knowledge resides in most places, and while one person couldn't
keep all of the knowledge safe, collectively split amongst a large group (and among a group that knew to keep its mouth shut and its head down), the knowledge would be protected, if scattered.

However, the mild point was that not all women stand united for one singular thing. Equality and rights mean something different depending on what privileges you hold, which I felt was fairly well explored in this one.
The Constituion? What, exactly, do you think the Constitution is? A magic spell? A dragon, perhaps, that will swoop down to defend you in your most desperate hour?" Cleo straightens in her seat. Juniper doesn't think she'd ever seen a face so full of scorn. "I assure you it has only ever been a piece of paper, and it has only ever applied to a very few persons."

So I've rattled on and on about rights and different groups and loosely alluded to feminism (which is a word that has different meanings to different people and is not universal), but not really talked about the plot.

Is there a lot to say about the plot? It's fairly straightforward, once you get past a lot of the over-written prose. Because as beautiful as much of the writing was, holy guacamole was it over-written, verging into violet territory on most of the page, which is why it took me forever to get through.

The pacing itself is very slow, made slower with the preponderance of words upon words upon description, as if Harrow delighted in new ways to describe a cobblestone or the ways branches twisted together or a special insight into the world's workings.

Anywho, the plot—women used to have magic, the magic was ripped away from them but there was a secret tower that was supposed to hold the last women's magic, and three sisters in New Salem found it and began a journey to smash the patriarchy and gain the vote.

There are parallels/allegories/whatever to the women's suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter, the history of the factories and tenements of the industrial revolution, the KKK, the rise of evangelicalism, and much more, all twisted into a world with vestiges of a past with women who ruled and ruled well. The hints of their former selves is tucked in all around—the worshipping of Eve, the many inventors/painters/prominent historical male figures turned female, the fact that St George hunted witches instead of dragons, and so much more.

However, the biggest thing you need to remember about this book is that librarians are awesome, but they are not infallible.

Is that a biased takeaway?

Eh.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review

I LOVED Alix Harrow's first book and was thrilled to see another fantasy novel coming so soon after her debut. This book reminds me a bit of the first one but very different setting and focus. This novel is set in the 1890s in New Salem and follows three sisters who have been separated for many years, driven apart by their abusive father. They are drawn together to a rally for women's suffrage in the main square in New Salem. Witchcraft and magic has been mostly burned out...until the day of this rally when something big happens and the sisters are thrown together to work for the rights of women, including the right to vote and to practice witchcraft.

I found this to be a very clever story about sisters, justice and fighting for women's rights. The story is told alternatively through the point of view of the three sisters, Agnes, Bella and June (representing the fairy tale tropes of The Mother, The Crone and the Maiden). The main characters and the supporting cast were so well written. The themes of fighting for justice feel very relevant now. The pacing and the twists were excellent and I really enjoyed the build-up towards the end. The author let us watch the preparations and get inside the heads of the sisters before the final trap is sprung and it put a smile on my face. I cannot wait for another book from Alix Harrow!

Heartbroken to say, it was only ok.

This book started out really promising. A great atmosphere, and it was fun seeing the sisters come together. But while playing around with the mother, maiden, crone trope was fun for a little bit, the characters never grew out of it. This combined with a plot that stretched itself beyond where it needed to go made for an unsatisfying end.

When I saw that Alix E. Harrow was coming out with another book I was thrilled. The Ten Thousand Doors of January was one of my favorite reads of the year so far, and I couldn't wait to see what else she would write!

One of my favorite things about The Ten Thousand Doors was the uniqueness of the story and the immersive writing, and I was not disappointed since both of those aspects were present in The Once and Future Witches.

The Once and Future Witches puts a supernatural twist on the woman's suffragist movement. It follows three sisters, James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna, as they join the suffragist movement of New Salem and try to find a way to bring back witching, as a way to give back power to women.

One thing I loved about the book was the magic system. It was super interesting and well developed, and I loved how the words - sort of like the spells in this case - were all inspired by different nursery rhymes and old fairy tales. Alix E. Harrow makes witch hood synonymous with womanhood, and the only way that women can pass along different spells to their daughters, sisters, and cousins without being exposed as a witch is through word of mouth. Hence spells being hidden in nursery rhymes, songs, and children's stories.

The characters were also so great! Each of the sisters were well developed with their own distinctive personalities, and I was genuinely interested in each of their story arcs, which is honestly a little rare for me when it comes to books with multiple characters.

If you're thinking of reading this book here's a list of pros to consider:

✨ Great characters!

✨ Historical setting with mix of urban fantasy

✨ I cannot stress this enough, but amazing writing

✨ Different spells and rhymes influenced by different cultures

This is the feminist witch suffragist evisceration of the patriarchy that I needed to read this year. The words are beautifully wrought and so very smart. The way is brilliant, tying history to witchcraft to fairy tales to nursery rhymes. The will is iron and runs through the tale without giving an inch. And once you have all three, well, you can do anything. 🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮

I really enjoyed the plot of this, but Harrow's writing has a certain primness to it, even when she's trying for grit that is kind of frustrating. Good characters and a fun story though, just wish the writing had a little more heart and feeling behind it.

I read the first 6 chapters but DNF’d. The writing was great, the witchiness was just a little too realistic for me.

I really wanted to love this. The story, setting, and characters were all intriguing, but something about the pacing really threw me off. I made it about halfway hoping that the story would pick up and move a little bit more quickly, but it just never really happened for me. I would still recommend this to patrons that are interested in witch fiction stories, and strong female characters. I think there are many readers out there who would love this one a lot more than I did.

This book is magical. It's full of secrets and layers and hidden meanings. And just like a spell which requires a pinch of this and a handful of that, it borrows names, phrases, history, fairy tales, and rhymes and mixes them into a new creation that causes moments of delighted recognition and conspiratorial smiles as the story unfolds.