Read This Book…

The book is set in the U.S. in the late 1800s. There were witches at one time, for a long time, but then there were purges and plagues and witching is all but gone. It still survives a bit, mostly among women who are in the working class. That kind of witching, while not necessarily legal, is allowed to fly under the radar. It’s just domestic witching, not the trouble-making kind.

This is a story about three sisters and witching and so much more. The first sister we meet is James Juniper Eastwood aka June. She is the youngest and arrives in New Salem on the spring equinox of 1893. She is no stranger to witching, having learned from her grandmother. June is wild and impulsive and sassy and straightforward. When June gets off the train in New Salem she has no idea where she is going but she’s definitely not sticking around the train station where there are wanted posters with her face on them. She heads toward a rally in St. George’s Square.

Agnes Amaranth Eastwood is the middle sister. She’s strong and strong-willed. She works as a mill girl and she is also in New Salem. She doesn’t necessarily get along with the other mill girls and when we meet her she’s not feeling very well. She, too, eventually finds herself pulled to St. George’s Square.

The last sister, the eldest sister, is Beatrice Belladonna Eastwood. She is frequently lost in books which makes sense when we learn she works at the Salem College Library. She is wise and endlessly curious. Perhaps a little too curious as she is keeping a small journal of little rhymes and spells and notes about witching that she has found in her illicit research of witchcraft. She stumbles upon the beginning of a spell and she says it aloud. Nothing happens at first, but she too feels pulled to St. George’s square and she is also compelled to continue repeating that partial spell she found.

In the square it looks like perhaps the partial spell did do something, though incomplete. All hell breaks loose because witching makes people terrified. Beatrice, Agnes, and June find each other in the square after years of estrangement. And this is where our story really begins.

Everything I’ve mentioned is only in the first 25 to 30 pages. There is so much story and it’s beautiful and exciting and creepy and lovely.