Three Not-So-Weird Sisters

by Fran Withrow 05.2020

I had witches on my mind, having just finished Alice Hoffman’s “Magic Lessons,” when I received “The Once and Future Witches.” I couldn’t wait to dive in.

It took me a while to get into this book, but when I finally did, oh, dear reader! This story tossed me on its back and away we flew on one of the grandest adventures I’ve experienced in quite a while. When I reached the end, I was so thrilled I immediately ordered author Alex Harrow’s previous book. I can’t wait to get it.

Once upon a time there were witches everywhere, and dragons too, but they were purged, and what remains in 1893 are spells hidden in nursery rhymes and fairy tale fragments, or stitched in embroidery and passed down from grandmothers to granddaughters. 

Once upon a time in 1893, there were three sisters: James Juniper, Beatrice Belladonna, and Agnes Amaranth. The sisters have been estranged from each other for years due to a misunderstanding stemming from their relationship with their abusive father. But a thread pulls them all together in New Salem at the site of a march for women’s suffrage, and when they reconnect, all the magic begins.

Even before the sisters bring magic to the fore in New Salem, women were quietly using magic. Herbs, chants, rhymes to heal a wound, comfort a heart, protect a child. But when the sisters use magic to cause a commotion during the march, the story really gets going.

Everything you could want is here: danger, a truly nasty bad guy, a trio of women who want more than they have been given. Women want the vote, social justice, and the right to have more power in their lives. The sisters form an alliance with other women, resurrect a tower full of magic, and fight those who think witches are cackling old crones who eat children for breakfast.

And the magic? “That’s all magic is, really: the space between what you have and what you need,” one delightful character says. Anyone can be a witch: one just needs the will, the way, and the words. A witch is “every woman who says what she shouldn’t, or wants what she can’t have, who fights for her fair share.”

I know a lot of wonderful witches.

Harrow brilliantly blends history with fiction. She meshes such tragedies as the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, plagues, the suffrage movement, the plight of women of color, and the struggles of immigrant women in with the story of how Juniper, Bella, and Agnes unlock the secrets of magic, learn the magic of words (which I loved), and cast spells.

Gideon Hill, this book’s resident epitome of evil, is glorious in his viciousness. I was on the edge of my seat as he attacks the women, and was taken aback to find out who he really is. How Harrow uses his character to keep magic alive for the three sisters will knock your socks off.

Once there were three sisters. I fell in love with all of them. And with all witches, everywhere.