“... who had yet to abandon his red walking coat… There might be a reason for that, Esther smirked, remembering the little rabbit that burrowed in his chest, made a warren of his lungs, his heart a new-pillowed coney-garth. Did he have little kittens in his blood?”

Well this was a fever dream.

I think this was one of those books where the world and characters have been in the author's mind for so long that they forgot to introduce us, as the reader, to what the hell was happening. The magic (?) was not explained once, where it came from, how these ‘Neighbor witches’ came to exist and why. What was the extent of her powers? Why do the dead flock to her as moths? Why did our main character just say fuck it and believe everything so easily? Was it because of grief or was this just poor storytelling? Was she blinded by the love she felt for Motheater that was NOT believable at all? What the actual fuck is going on with snakes? What are the tattoos that move on Motheater or are they brands made by the dead? She can see the dead? She can travel in time through someone's blood? What??

Am I losing my mind thinking this all over to write this review? Yes.

There were some lines that I think were trying to make this more into a horror novel, but it was simply just a poorly done fantasy world, so it felt extremely out of place.

It felt as though this was supposed to be high stakes but in the end it wasn’t.
By the synopsis it seemed like it's going to be high stakes, and it DID start off strong.
She finds the body of a woman and thinks she's dead but isn’t… then everything goes flat. The plot got lost somewhere in the midst of the past and present timeline. I got confused numerous times as to what our main characters actually wanted to happen, or rather what the book wanted to BE.

Motheater was so insanely abrupt because she'd been locked away for hundreds of years that it became humorous when she was around people who actually had some sense and thought she was insane. This includes our main heroines ex boyfriend, Zach, and Zach only.

Things were dropped on us at random. I asked myself numerous times, am I missing something? Am I reading this incorrectly? At the 77% mark, things actually started to get interesting, but in the end I did not care about the characters or what ended up happening, and the effort I had to put in to get to that point was not worth it. One thing I hate about books is when they make me feel stupid or that I'm missing something, and this crossed all those boxes sadly. I think this world could have been really cool if the magic system was explained, and with a better and more thrilling plot.

(actual rating 1.75)

Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy! I took my time with this one and really enjoyed it. I've been looking to read more Appalachian fiction and I love a good fantasy, so this was a great choice for me. It's been a while since I've read a book with a character out of their time and felt it was done well here. The goals of the main characters were closely aligned, but there was a good level of conflict on how they aimed to accomplish them. I liked their romantic subplot quite but as well. The magic system was wonderfully done, and seemed well researched. Overall I would definitely recommend this!

This was a magical read that tugged me into it's story full of mystery. Were investigating the dead bodies from the coal miners in the current time especially because Bennies best friend died but when we go back in time to motheaters past it was interesting, I really enjoy when there is multiple times in a story. There is so much to this story. It was enjoyed.

wow wow wow wow okay wow

what a magical read! we follow Bennie as she continues her endless search for answers regarding the growing number of coal miners found dead, a search that became even more crucial to her following the death of her best friend at the hand of the mine. when Bennie discovers a nearly-drowned woman in the slough, she decides to take the strange woman, called Motheater, and the two soon find a common interest in finding answers about the industrialization of the mountain, as well as working together to help discover who Motheater really is and how she wound up half-drowned. I would say, this definitely read a lot more like literary fiction than it did a straight fantasy!

Codega blends witches, environmental justice, sapphic romance, Appalachian Folk natural magic, and of course, lots and lots of moths.

thank you to Erewhon Books and netgalley for the ARC of this book!

This could have been so cool T-T
The concept of this book is excellent: Appalachian witch v Mining Company. The vibes are very American gothic, and the atmosphere of the book is without a doubt my favourite part.
Motheater herself has a strong voice and interesting magic. Her flashback chapters were probably my favourite part of the story. I especially enjoyed the balance between self-awareness and stubbornness that the author struck with Motheater as a character.
Unfortunately, Bennie's chapters, which are set in the modern day, don't hit quite the same. I was quickly fatigued by the constant reminders that her best friend had died, that White Rock (the mining company) was responsible, and that they were responsible for other deaths. I get it. You don't need to remind me every three pages.
The story's pacing suffered because of this repetition, and I found Bennie's chapters a slog. While Motheater's flashbacks were not necessarily faster-paced, their more interesting setting and more compelling narrator made them an easier and more enjoyable read.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the arc!

MOTHEATER was full of so many elements that were right up my alley. Bennie is investigating deaths in a mine in Appalachia when she finds a witch who'd been pulled out of the very mine she's working to shut down. Motheater is a form of hedge witch, working with plants and animals and nature. There's a dual timeline that gives us details of both Motheater's past and the origins of the mine that's causing so much trouble in the present. And there's a big twist at the end that pulled everything together in a magnetizing way.

Unfortunately, I felt very disconnected from the characters, which caused a lot of these things to fall flat. It didn't feel like Bennie or Motheater were very established as people. Neither of their voices felt consistent to me. There also didn't seem to be a solid understanding of the native wildlife, which pulled me out of the story at times. I also just can't imagine having a blue jay follow me around for even an hour without naming it, much less multiple days and not being entirely obsessed, but that one is definitely a personal thing.

Queer witchiness, an evil mining company, and environmental justice themes--what's not to love?

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc! Opinions are my own.

MOTHEATER is one of those books that you just can't put dabout , Motheater, the town of Kiron, Ð. BennieOnce you start reading  the mountain Kire, you will be hooked

This book has everything necessary to become a Bestseller. Intrigue. Magic. Queerness. A David is Goliath type fight. Unexplained Disappearances.

The writing is fabulous and Linda Codega paints a vivid picture of the gorgeous Appalachian Mountains. Then she guts you with descriptions of the mining practice of "mountaintop removal."

I don't want to give too much away, but trust me, you will LOVE this book as much as I do. 

The hardcover version of this book is absolutely stunning and also contains a map created by the author.

5 Stars 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Thank you to #NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book.

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.