Loved, loved, loved everything about this book. The thousand doors of January was one of my favourite books that I read this year so I was so excited to read this. When I found out it was going to be about witches that was a huge bonus!
The writing is beautiful, descriptive and lyrical. It was magic for adults and Alix.E Harrow is fast becoming one of my favourite authors!

Thank you for letting me have a copy of this beautiful book. I'm off to buy the hard copy.

The first thing I want to mention is the cover for this book, it’s stunning and it’s one of those covers that you don’t want to hide away and just show the spine. It wants to sit on your shelf in full view and be appreciated.

I’ve always had a thing for witchy stories so when I heard this book was coming out I knew straight away I needed to read it. I was lucky enough to read The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow and I loved it so I had high expectations for this book and I wasn’t disappointed.

The way the author has written this story is so immersive, it’s one of those books where you have to have time to sit and read with no distractions because it makes you feel like you’ve actually fallen into it, it wraps itself around you and totally pulls you in.

I just loved the three Eastwood sisters, Beatrice Belladonna, Agnes Amaranth and James Juniper. Each sister was very different yet so alike and I loved watching their story unfold, how they were torn apart and brought back together, how they maybe didn’t see eye to eye but they supported each other. I can’t say I had a favourite really because I loved all three for different reasons.

The Once and Future Witches isn’t just a story about spells and magic it’s a story about women fighting for what’s right, it’s about women showing they are just as good as men, it’s about fighting for equal rights, racism, equal pay and so much more and it’s absolutely fascinating. The way the author has managed to write a story that mixes all these things is refreshing and empowering.

It’s really difficult to put into words how much I adored this book and what it’s about without giving anything away. It had me so engrossed and I loved how the tension built throughout the story making me keep turning the pages and not wanting to sleep. It’s a story that I thought about when I wasn’t reading and was chomping at the bit to get back to.

A truly magical and mesmerising tale that I will definitely be highly recommending to everyone.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I haven't yet got round to reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Harrow's last book, but that's now shot up my TBR pile as I LOVED this novel. Witches, magic, feminism, family - what's not to love? The plot never lets up and while I had a few inklings of where the story was going, it was never predictable. The Eastwood sisters are all brilliant characters, and I'm quite sad this is a standalone novel as I'd love to read more about their adventures!

This is the book I've been waiting for my entire life. It might be cliched or cheesy but here's no other way to describe this wonderful, magical book.

Three sisters who are witches, a late Victorian setting, women fighting for suffrage and power - the basic premise sounded pretty good. Yet beyond that, Alix E Harrow offers a deftly created world which will fulfil every little girl's fantasy. Chapters are interwoven with spells, or the 'words' as well as the 'ways' to achieve them, imbuing even more magic into an already enchanting novel. Interspersed throughout are 'witch-tales' written by the likes of the 'Sisters Grimm' lending a fairytale quality to the story. The historical world building and allusions to literature, stories and nursery rhymes are the cherry on top, giving us a detailed history of witching and social issues that fits together perfectly.

These wonderful little details, give us a world where the narrative has come from women and dissect everything we know and assume about fairytales and their stereotypes. Thanks to this we see that behind the fun and the magic this is a very clever novel which subverts a culture embedded with patriarchy. Harrow turns the stories we know on their heads to show us what we already know, but what culture has found difficult to accept; women are complex and cannot be reduced to archetypes of 'virgin', 'whore', 'mother' and 'crone'. With complex, richly built characters who rebel against these labels, Harrow fights against the need to characterise women in such reductive terms. As if this wasn't enough, the novel is set against a very recognisable political background which allows us to vicariously experience a world where women have real power, but also shows us that women do have real power and that there is always hope if we strive for a better future. The setting and fantastical nature of the book gives us just enough distance to still be escapist on some level, but there is no doubt that Harrow has something to say about the danger and damage of populist politics.

As well as being wonderfully witchy, fantastically detailed and a searing social commentary, this novel is diverse, with communities of color built into the fabric of the world, and LGBT characters and romance. There is real appreciation that whatever our characters are going through, there are groups who will be facing even worse. This book is a lesson for exactly how to avoid whitewashing a narrative, and acknowledging communities you don't belong to without being appropriative.

The reading experience is like falling headfirst into the world of New Salem. We follow the sisters as they try to reconnect and bring back witching, we root for their romances, and fear for them as they are hunted and persecuted by an oppressive regime. You haven't read fantasy like this before, a story which prioritises sisterhood, empowers women and will set the standard for the genre going forward.

I adored Harrow's first novel and this one is even better. She is fast on becoming one of my absolute favourite authors and The Once and Future Witches is already a firm all time favourite.

The Once and future witches is a historical fantasy about witches and suffragettes! Witches are not what they used to be and this is a story about three sisters who join the local suffragettes but want to also rediscover their witchy roots! Unfortunately the writing style wasn’t for me . It’s very beautiful and descriptive but I definitely prefer a more fast paced novel. What I read of it was very good and the premise is really unique

Alix E. Harrow did it again! And now I'm forever convinced I will read everything she ever writes, although I was quite sure of that after reading her debut novel.

The Once and Future Witches had me enchanted from the first page. Set in the late 1800s at the brink of the suffragette movement, it's a story of three estranged sisters, Agnes, Bella and Juniper, who are brought back together in strange circumstances. It's a beautiful, atmospheric and feminist tale of sisterly bonds, witchery and women's rights.

Harrow's writing is impeccable. It's just the right amount of flowery, without being lofty and overdone. Considering it's only her second book, it's very impressive as she seems to have found her style and voice already.

I love all three sisters equally. It's not often I get attached to every character in the story, I usually have my favourites, but it's really hard to pick a favourite out of Agnes, Bella and Juniper. All three sisters are vastly different and fascinating in their own way. Most of the secondary characters are female, too, and together they make for a greatly diverse and strong ensemble.

Give me anything witchy and I'll read it. I have a soft spot for magic of any kind and witchy stories. The Once and Future Witches is so much more, though. It's about women who are fed up of being silenced, objectified, judged, harassed... you name it. It's feminist in the best way - inclusive of ALL, no matter their race, sexuality or biological sex (although Harrow acknowledges how it was perceived in the past, and for some until this day). The family dynamics and sisterly bond between the three protagonists was just the cherry on top.

I don't understand why so many people are sleeping on this book. I deserves more hype - it's absolutely fantastic. All the stars for The Once and Future Witches!!!

I could go for a long review analyzing the world building, the characters and the plot.
Or I could go for a short one saying that this book is excellent and even if it's alternate history/fantasy it's so full of references to what is happening now that you enjoyed what you're reading but you cannot help reflecting on what you read.
Excellent world building and character development, a bit slow at times but I couldn't put it down.
Alix Harrow's style of writing is excellent and I love her storytelling.
A gripping and highly entertaining story, strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I was never a fan of books with witches, I don't know why, to be honest, but this one draw my attention. From the first line I was in love.
The world building is done so well, the atmosphere is incredible and I made me want to be there with the sisters, to fight along them. Can I be part of their family, please? Even of they where separated for 7 years, the way they found each other, the bond between them and the love is everything.
Something else that I loved is that the magic is not presented as something huge, dramatic, but as something subtle, hidden in plain sight by the women, hidden in nursery rhymes, in recipes. Generations after generations, powerful mothers, sisters, daughters, all wanting to survive in a world created for men.
This is truly a feminist story about women being there for each other, fighting for their freedom and about sisterhood. I can't wait to read more books by Alix. E. Harrow.

Oh how I wanted to love this book! With a storyline that features suffragettes, and witches and sisterhood I thought it impossible not to love but somehow it just fell flat.
I really truly was so excited for this one and the story IS wonderful but there is simply too much of it. For me the book is far longer than it needs to be, the pacing doesn’t lend itself to a comfortable 45 chapters. At one point I thought to myself “oh we must be almost done” but then I checked and I was merely 43% of the way through. Could this book have been a hard four stars? Yes, if it was around 14 chapters shorter. But sadly I can only give it a generous 3 stars-great concept, intriguing story-but it was too long, and the characters didn’t make me love them.

The idea of witches continues to fascinate in the 21st century. It's a part of culture we all imbibe in waves. As children there's the raddled Hallowe'en crone with her cauldron, going all the way back to the Scottish Play, sinister figures from fairy tales and L Frank Baum's Oz witches. Then there's the historical corrective that we all (hopefully) acquire later, knowledge of the actual persecutions visited on supposed witches for hundreds of years. Finally, there are revivals and claimed continuities, overlaps with modern Paganism. It all gives a rich field for the fantasy author, and Alix E Harrow has made full use of that latitude to create a kind of unified mythology: her 19th century, USA set story tales place in a world where witches had been real, once a part of everyday life and therefore, neither malevolent magicians nor (wholly) innocent victims, rather simply people, good and bad, using natural powers.

But all that changed with the persecutions and by the time we arrive in New Salem, witches are banished, proscribed, remembered only in children's stories and nursery rhymes. They still serve a purpose, though, for the men who rule this world - a dreadful warning of the powers of women, of the need to keep them under control (shackled and bridled if need be, and always dwelling in the shadow of the stake).

Such is the situation facing the three Eastwood sisters, Juniper, Agnes and Bella at the beginning of the book. Brought up by their widowed and despotic father, the sisters have had plenty of experience of male power and abuse (we are never told exactly what he did to them in that cellar but enough is said for a shrewd guess) but rather than building solidarity between them it has broken the family and they are now scattered - Juniper a wandering fugitive, Agnes toiling in a dark Satanic mill and Bella, after being subject to the regime of what sounds like a dreadful reformatory, a librarian.

So when the sisters meet, apparently by chance, in the city of New Salem, it's not exactly a happy reunion. While it's painful to read at times, Harrow's portrayal of the sisters and their past and present relationships is powerful and convincing. There's a mixture of guilt, blame and fear between the three resulting from their desperate attempts to protect themselves from their father and from the circumstances in which Agnes and Bella, the older sisters, left Juniper behind.

Those breaches can't be wiped away in a happy-ever-after and overcoming them, building trust and looking to the future isn't easy which is unfortunate not only on a personal level but because - as the scraps of story and rhyme included here emphasise - there always need to be three witches, and unless the young women can unite, they will be vulnerable to a threat far more serious than popular prejudice and the odd Inquisitor.

Harrow's writing here is sensitive and realistic. Each of the three has her own problems, and sees her own solutions - where that's Bella's research among the stacks to discover the lost power of witchcraft, Juniper's enthusiastic, if slightly sung-ho, embrace of Suffragism, or Agnes's aim of lying low while using her few remembered spells for the betterment of those around her. Together, their different experiences give a powerful overview of the persecution and domination of women, reaching beyond fantasy to the struggles for equal rights for women, people of colour and working people in the late 19th century. Because of course the forces that would oppress and destroy witches are the same forces that find a racial divide useful and oppress those workers in factories and mills and on the railroads.

This interweaving of the magical and the mundane is deftly done (there's a down to earth vein of romance here, as when one character remarks to herself that 'she doesn't think that any man has ever brought her hot pies') and brings in a wider cast of characters who open the eyes of the sisters to these wider issues. There is Miss Cleopatra P Quinn, journalist and stalwart of the Colored Women's League. There is Mr August Lee, labour organiser and dabbler in magic. And there will be more, a diversity of women and men with their own secrets and vulnerabilities. And all will be guided by those half-remembered scraps of lore and learning preserved by the Sisters Grimm, by Charlotte Perrault, Andrea Lang and the other classic collectors of stories who you will doubtless have heard of, and in the rhymes and chants that Harrow include at the start of each chapter and which may sound both familiar and unfamiliar.

It's an absorbing, bewitching tale and one that - after The Ten thousand Doors of January - confirm's Harrow's place at the heart of modern fantasy.

The writing in this book was beautiful, poetic and I really liked the basis of the magic and how it was passed down through generations. I did find certain things a bit repetitive though. I won't be too specific, but one character and her circle around herself, the youngest and her personality being told repeatedly, it was just a bit overdone. It's quite slow paced as well, although it picks up towards the end, I would have preferred a faster pace throughout to hold my attention better.

I took a while to get into this and found it quite a slow burn. I'm so glad I persevered though, as it really took off and I was so keen to see how it ended! Alix E Harrow's previous book was similar for me in terms of a slow start. Definitely worth reading - a combination of women's suffrage, the Underground Railroad and magic which really drew me in.

There is nothing I like better than a good witch novel and when it was intensely gripping and immersive as The Once and Future Witches I loved it even more. Yet there was a difference, one that gave it an extra dimension that I admired so wonderfully did Harrow weave her themes within the story.

So what did Harrow do that made it that bit different? It was her ability to incorporate equality, feminism and race into what could have been just an ordinary witch novel with such effortless ease.

She gave us three young women, sisters, daughters of a tyrannical drunk father, of whom two escaped leaving the youngest to her fate. All harboured grudges that through the years apart had festered and simmered until one fateful day in New Salem they met again.

So who were they? Bella, the eldest, the Maiden, the intellect who enveloped herself in a world of words and books. She was the one who craved an easy life, one where she no took risks, made few friends and existed within her own enclosed world.

Agnes, the middle sister, who spent her days working in the cotton mills, at the beck and call of its male owners and foremen, poorly paid, and just like Bella, just existing.

Juniper will no doubt be everyone’s favourite, the youngest, the one who stayed behind until their father died who made her way to New Salem. She was stubborn, naive, angry, brave, and in many respects foolhardy, but you had to love her for all her faults.

Harrow threw them back together, the old grudges, the mistrust simmered below the surface before outside events overtook as Juniper’s involvement in the New Salem Women’s Association grew more intense and risky. This was where Harrow injected that clever ‘difference’ the push for women to get the vote, to be treated as more equal, to have the same pay as men, to be listened to for their opinions, to have that all important voice so long denied.

Of course, Harrow didn’t merely stop there as the wonderful world of magic, spells and potions slowly crept in, as the evil Gideon Hill, would be Mayor, became the thorn in their side, the evil that must be defeated.

Obviously it wasn’t always straightforward as the sisters, came up against their own personal challenges that included motherhood, coming to terms with their past and even a little time for love.

It gave the novel a wonderful heady mix that was at once thrilling and exciting, as Harrow negotiated us through the constant sway between good and evil. The atmosphere Harrow managed to create, was brilliantly eerie, burning towers, hovering mists, the tangled web of backstreets, alleys and underground tunnels, prisons submerged in water, and growling dark familiars that had me completely consumed.

I hoped beyond hope that the sisters would succeed as Harrow ramped up the danger, the threat to life imminent, seemingly guaranteed as they ran towards a brilliant pulse racing climax. The imagery was unbelievable, the tension tangible, the fallout heartbreaking but somehow right, somehow what was needed.

I was grateful Harrow provided an epilogue, one that completed the novel, that tied up the lose ends and left me with a great satisfaction of having read a truly fantastic novel.

This is easily one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read this year to date. Set in nineteenth century America, this is the tale of the formidable Eastwood sisters fighting for the rights of women and witches in the face of oppression, brutality and the resurgence of an ancient magic. It’s a dramatic, emotive and thought provoking piece of fantastically written feminist fantasy fiction.

This is my first time reading Harrow’s work, and I have to start by saying that she paints the most beautiful picture with her prose. Whether she’s describing setting, magic or emotion, it’s all done with such enchanting flair. I cannot praise her writing style highly enough. Reading this has made me so excited to go back and discover her debut, The Thousand Doors of January.

The Once and Future Witches strikes the perfect balance between character and plot, essentially because Harrow does such a spectacular job at intertwining the two so deeply and richly. It’s an incredibly well paced and plotted story with action, drama, romance, sisterhood and magic in droves.

I loved all of the characters fiercely! The Eastwood sisters are so richly developed and realistically written. The flaws that Harrow sets up and challenges each of them with are equal parts heartbreaking, frustrating and joyful. The extended cast are also superbly fleshed out with their own distinct arcs of heartaches and triumphs.

The magic in this story feels so realistic. Harrow infuses it with such an earthy and grounded charm that while reading this I could imagine the women of my own family lineage passing down the secrets of their workings through the generations.

I’m so pleased to have discovered a new favourite author with this book. I can’t wait to see what Alex E. Harrow can conjure up next.

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.

Reading the synopsis going into this book I was super excited, suffragettes + witches yes please! However that’s not really all this story is about. The suffragette movement merely inspires a witchy revolution in the town of New Salem. It is a story of witchcraft and sisterhood with a whole host of characters along for the ride.

I did really enjoy the writing style, it is very magical and atmospheric, though this may not be to everyone’s taste. I loved how nursery rhymes and stories we all know and love were incorporated into this book. Starting the chapters with nursery rhymes as spells was a really great creative idea.

I really wanted to LOVE this book and give it a higher rating but I just can’t and that is down to my personal experience. I found it really hard to connect with any of the characters, the sisters started out as very one dimensional and almost caricatures of themselves. There was then so many people introduced to the story as well that it was hard to keep track or again connect with any of them.

The other issue I had with it is that there was so much information dumping and the pacing was then so off. It felt like such a chore to get through some of it but then other parts I couldn’t wait to read more.

I continued on with the book as I was provided with an arc copy but I’m not sure I would have otherwise.

I received this book through Netgalley quite a while ago, but saved it for October because Witches. So October arrived, and amazing reviews for it started popping up… and I finally picked this up. I made the grave mistake of doing so on a quiet day at work, constantly dipping in and out of it between customers. Not surprisingly I couldn’t get into it. And so well over a week passed and I almost gave up on it.

But I am so glad I didn’t! On an off day I decided to give it one more go, snuggled up on the couch with a massive cup of tea and some candles… and I didn’t leave that couch for another 8 hours till I had finished the book. And I loved every second of it.

Yes this is a book about witches. But even more so it is about women fighting for their rights, about sisters dealing with shared trauma.We follow the Eastwood sisters, who want to bring witching back and use it to transform and empower the women’s movement.

This is a very well written, and very character driven story. The sisters are all their own person, well developed with harrowing back stories, round personalities and good motives. The side characters are interesting and diverse, and what I hugely appreciate is that not all man in this book are assholes.

But what I personally loved the most about this book is the incorporation of folktales and nursery rhymes to provide the words needed to cast spells (written down by the Sisters Grimm). And when the real identity of the main villain was revealed I was stunned with the brilliance of the retelling.

This is a beautiful book about sisterhood and making your own future. And I loved it.

(4.5/5 stars) Apparently alternate-historical fiction/fantasy is a new genre I love! Once I cottoned on to how this book was an alt-hist-fic that gender-bends many famous folklorists (e.g. the Sisters Grimm, Charlotte Perrault) my level of enjoyment spiked. I loved when legends familiar to us today are subtly reworked to fit the book’s world – something I really liked in ‘Sin Eater’ by Megan Campisi too (another female-centred alt-hist-fic novel!). There were slightly reimagined fairytales dotted throughout the book, which was a real treat for me as someone who adores retellings.

The Eastwood sisters were three nuanced and distinctive leads, though I do wish that the POVs didn’t change quite so often within the same chapter. While there are some amazing plot twists, this is more of a character-driven novel. James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth and Beatrice Belladona all have independent arcs that are also irrevocably tied to each other’s. It’s not just the leads who get nice character work – the villain’s backstory exposition was excellent too. I still get chills remembering how it all pieced together!

I really enjoyed the themes of sisterhood, of collective action and subtle, everyday resistance. I appreciated the support for intersectional feminism and how hurtful the lack of it is, and I was pleased that here it is recognised that Anglo-American witching is only a sliver of all the witching in the world. This sentiment was also reflected in how the primacy of the written record is challenged and the power of oral tradition is asserted. It made me happy that there were also men allied wholeheartedly with the women, reminding me that there is no justice until there is justice for all, and how important it is to all work together.

It was another really pleasant surprise to find that this book features a diverse cast along several axes. Bella is lesbian and I believe has depression, Juniper is disabled (injured leg from a fire) and I think she may be aro-ace, one of the major secondary characters is trans, and there were also many other characters of colour, including Bella’s love interest Cleo, who is Black.

Harrow has a way with words, and this book is full of lush prose, sharp wit, saturated emotion and quotable lines. Overall I really enjoyed her writing style, though near the end it started to feel repetitive and slightly melodramatic. Perhaps this was a corollary of the plot picking up as we drew to a close? I just want to know what happens next!

I’d recommend picking this up if you’re looking for a character-driven, feminist, witchy historical fantasy with diverse characters and found family elements! Definitely fitting for autumnal reading.

The Once and Future Witches is a fun read, perfect for Halloween.

As the blurb tells you this is basically a story of suffragists who are also somewhat witchy. It centres of three sisters and their struggles in a prejudiced world - in this case the late 19th century town of New Salem.

Having read Alix Harrow's previous book, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, which I thought was really inventive and intriguing, I was keen to see if she could maintain that quality with the follow-up. For me, this one didn't quite hit the same heights and felt a little more generic and lacking in some of the bigger ideas in "TTTDoJ". For a book about witches, it was lacking a certain magic and sense of wonder for me. A huge deal is made about the sisters possibly bringing about the return of witchcraft but it felt like every woman in the story was actually already practicing magic anyway, so I didn't get any sense of the awe that might accompany a "magic returns to the mundane world" sort of tale.

However, it was a fun story with some positive messages and I think it will be really popular, especially with readers a little younger than this old crone. :-)

I was so excited to read this book and I was not disappointed. An incredible novel and one I could not put down. A must read.

Oh what a read, I love anything about witch craft and this book was superb beginning to end.

In this story we meet the Eastwood sisters, who all hold a different interest in the lost ways of witching. I loved the link to the Sister's Grimm stories and how the spells were sung. The words flow from the pages like one long spell and the more I read the more the story leapt effortlessly off of the pages.

A story full of witching ways, with whispered spells and shadows hiding around corners. I am so disappointed to reach the end as I loved every element of this story and will miss the wonderful Eastwood sisters and their whispered words.

The perfect read for Halloween and I am so excited to be able to share my review and recommend this wonderful read!!