A review by a_mae13
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

2.0

“Behind every witch is a woman wronged.”

Maybe I'm just being incredibly harsh on the fantasy books that I read...but I didn't get the hype of this book. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. We follow three sisters, Beatrice, Agnes, and James, and their experiences with bringing back witchcraft to New Salem. The sisters are estranged but with every good fantasy, tragedy brings them back together again! It's a split POV between the three of them and their histories, along with their current feats.

The main story we follow is about James "Juniper", who was abandoned by her sisters to live alone with their abusive father. Her father recently died so she's finally free and out on her own. She's in New Salem, wanting to join the suffrage to promote women's rights...kinda. She actually wants to promote the use of witchcraft. She runs into her sisters in the city, Beatrice is a librarian and Agnes is allegedly working in the city. It's not exactly the family reunion that you'd expect, but they put aside their differences and start to work together.

They attempt to join the suffrage movement, hoping that teaming up with women will also open their minds to witchcraft...and it does not. This was one of the plot lines that I didn't understand. While set amidst the need for women's rights, the sisters joining and then trying to convince everyone to do witchcraft was just confusing. Juniper does recruit some of the women to their cause but is ultimately kicked out. And then the suffrage movement is almost all altogether dropped from the plot. I suppose it was to recruit some other folks into the witchcraft movement, which is named The Sisters of Avalon.

The plot splinters between the three sisters; Beatrice becomes close with Cleopatra Quinn, who is allegedly a part of the Colored Women's Society as a journalist.

She's not, she's actually a part of a witchcraft group called the Daughters of Tituba.

They eventually become a couple and are really the only ones that develop a relationship. Even the sisters hardly deepen their bonds. Agnes goes to seduce some of the men involved with the Chicago worker's riot in hopes of finding someone adept with men's magic (which is apparently a thing in this plot) and meets an August Lee. He joins the sisters in their cause of bringing back witchcraft.

And then there's Juniper, who is promptly arrested early on in the book for murder. Plot twist, she killed their dad. But he deserved it honestly. He's the reason the sisters are estranged in the first place. But for most of the story, Juniper is in a prison cell that is flooded with sewage and is collared to bar her from using magic. Agnes and Beatrice set out to save her from prison. They conjure the Tower of Avalon, and things get a bit tense...and confusing. Maybe I just didn't understand the story 😂

but the plot twist with Giedon Hill being the mayor wasn't that exciting to me... usually when you have a dark, evil character that no one knows where they are...it's a place of power. But I still read the entire book and didn't hate it 🤷🏻‍♀️ I was really only interested when Agnes' baby was kidnapped. That had me hooked because as soon as she gave birth, I had that sinking feeling that something would happen to the baby.

Personally, I enjoyed the ending the most compared to the rest of the story. The first half was VERY SLOW

but Juniper was killed during the final showdown with Gideon. And despite having magic and witchcraft, she remained dead. I think too many YA fantasy stories revive main characters because they are main characters and why not? They have magic? But that was a nice touch. Juniper was reckless, rightfully so, but actions have consequences.

I hope to reread this and see if I can connect more with the glowing reviews.