I adored this book so much, but it’s not a light or easy read. This historical fantasy about three sisters in 1893 does not permit them to take an easy route on their journey towards a decent life. There are two romances, but they are not central to the book, which keeps its focus on the sisters as they struggle for autonomy and power for women in a ferociously patriarchal world.

Here’s the plot description from the publisher:

In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.

But when the Eastwood sisters–James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna–join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women’s movement into the witch’s movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote-and perhaps not even to live-the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

From this synopsis one might think that the sisters share a close bond, but by the time this book opens they have been fractured, turned against each other, separated by distance and time, and are full of bitterness towards each other. I actually found this to be painfully realistic, especially since most of their discord is the result of their abusive father’s manipulation (they were easier to control one at a time). Watching them heal is a slow but satisfying process.

A major theme of the book is the need for healing rifts, as the sisters have to reconcile in order to move forward with their lives. They also have to build bridges with the suffragettes (it’s less that they join the suffragettes and more that the suffragettes join them) which involves reconciliation over class lines, religions, countries, and goals. The White women have to build connections with the Black women who have their own magic lore. Just as the sisters were divided in part deliberately by their father as a way to lessen their ability to escape him, so these social divisions have to be overcome so that they can combine their knowledge and strength towards a common goal.

There are two romances here, one between two women and one between a woman and a man. Readers should know that this is a moving and deeply empowering book with an uplifting ending, but it’s not an entirely happy ending. TW for mention of spousal and child abuse (not sexual), sexual harrasment in the workplace, abortion, and a very traumatic birth scene. I appreciated that one character has an abortion and later chooses to have a baby, and regards both decisions positively and as being the right decisions for her at those particular times in her life.

I also loved the idea of women’s magic being suppressed and laughed at, but preserved not in giant tomes of lore but as nursery rhymes, songs, stories, and coded bits of needlework. Virginia Woolf famously said, “I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” This book takes the idea of anonymous lore and runs with it, tying “women’s magic” (which is thought of as small and inconsequential) to “women’s work” (work that also de-valued in a patriarchal society). Incidentally, there is a trans woman character who is accepted by the sisters and who has full access to the gathered “women’s lore.”

The language in this book is just stunning. I’m trying to pick out a paragraph to quote as an example but then I want to include the next and the next and the next. Here a snippet from the introduction. The focus in the book switches between the sisters and is usually third person, but in this bit Juniper is narrating in first person. It gives you a sense of how the language is tough and stark yet still poetic:

It used to be the air was so thick with magic you could taste it on your tongue like ash. Witches lurked in every tangled wood and waited at every midnight-crossroad with sharp-toothed smiles. They conversed with dragons on lonely mountaintops and rode rowan-wood brooms across full moons, they charmed the stars to dance beside them on solstice and rode to battle with familiars at their heels. It used to be witches were wild as crows and fearless as foxes, because magic blazed bright and the night was theirs.

After explaining how witchcraft was suppressed, she goes on to say:

Most respectable folk can’t even light a candle with witching, these days, but us poor folk still dabble here and there. Witch-blood runs deep in the sewers, the saying goes. Back home every mama teaches her daughters a few little charms to keep the soup-pot from boiling over or to make the peonies bloom out of season. Every daddy teaches his sons how to spell axe-handles against breaking and roofs against leaking.

Our daddy never taught us shit, except what a fox teaches chickens – how to run, how to tremble, how to outlive the bastard – and our mama died before she could teach us much of anything. But we had Mama Mags, our mother’s mother, and she didn’t fool around with soup-pots and flowers.

Everything is tactile, there’s a powerful sense of place, and people have real physical needs, so it’s beautifully anchored in reality while also making use of fantasy. I enjoyed Harrow’s previous book, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, but found it slow. That was not an issue here. I tore through this book so fast trying to get to the next thing that was happening that I’m sure I missed a lot of nuance.

I am uneasy with the fact that the Black community is on the sidelines. Beatrice becomes friends with Cleopatra Quinn, a Black woman, and Cleo is very firm about making sure Beatrice understands that Black women have always had their own thing going, that they have other stories that Beatrice cannot come close to comprehending, and that Beatrice and her sisters will not be just taking over and adopting lore willy-nilly. Still, even though she’s an important character, I felt like she was sidelined because she is NOT one of the sisters, and this is about the sisters. The focus on the sisters means that the story centers Whiteness even as it clearly acknowledges other races and other cultures. The sisters are marginalized themselves, but in very different ways (they come from an impoverished rural background, Beatrice is a lesbian, Agnes is a single mother, and Juniper and Agnes lack in formal education).

I also feel like this book diminishes the suffragettes slightly by moving the focus away from their historical efforts and away from the need for a vote and focusing more on the idea of empowering people with magic so they can use it in a variety of causes (the labor movement and civil rights in particular). I liked the idea of using magic in this way but as someone who feels very passionately about the suffragette movement in America I couldn’t help but feel that their real accomplishments were erased. Of course the Nineteenth Amendment wasn’t passed until long after the events of this book, and that Amendment did not extend the vote to large groups of American women. So some of this is a matter of timing. It’s not so much that the sisters get a big win; it’s more that they gather a lot of ammunition.

Overall I loved reading this book. I literally gasped and clapped my hands over my mouth periodically, like a silent movie star. It’s so gripping, so beautifully written, and such a powerful homage to women’s voices and the need to unify against a common enemy. The protagonists are all flawed in ways that make sense and they are believable and relatable. I felt stronger and more awake after reading it. There are elements that disappointed me upon reflection, and things I wish had been interrogated more rigorously, but overall, this is a great “women’s rage” read.