My first foray into speculative history, and what a wild ride! Taking place in 1920 Appalachia, this story follows multiple small town POVs - a black woman struggling with visions of the future, a haunted soldier, and a troubled one-room-schoolhouse teacher, all interwoven with magical mystery and sprinkled with love.
This book has a very specific intersection between character study and American gothic / witch vibes. While I was reading this book I kept thinking this felt like the perfect mash up of the movies VVITCH (for the old timey spooky magic) and The Conjuring (for the Christian / exorcism overtones), but cut down the terror and pacing by half. Intrigue and mystery is around every corner, however this is not a fast paced novel, but rather a slow concentration on 3 individuals trapped by racism, sexism, and homophobia with a spooky backdrop. These characters feel real, and the plot is gripping and original. Even with a character who glimpses the future, I could not predict the final 15% of the book, and I couldn’t put it down as the ending neared! I would absolutely recommend this one if you don’t mind a slow burn and are the type of person who bets friends on how movies will end! Thank you to Nicole Jarvis, NetGalley and Titan Books for a copy of this eARC!

A strong storyline with interesting characters! Well worth reading for those that enjoy history and magical influences.

A fun read that kept me captivated throughout the book. Admittedly it does slow down a bit towards the end, but the result is worth the journey. The characters were written with care which made them easy to read. Nice to see more books set in this area and time period.

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book.*

"A Spell for Change" is set in Appalachia after WW1 and follows the lives of three very different people. The writing style makes this easy to read but I did not care for any of the characters and found the story predictable and partly boring. Plus points for the queer romance bit which made this book much better for me. Overall not the right book for me right now, sorry.

A Spell for Change by Nicole Jarvis is poignant, romantic, and engrossing historical romantic fiction. I rooted for the characters, cried, smile and enjoyed the excellent storytelling. Well done.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

While this novel is too high-stakes to qualify as a cozy fantasy, A Spell for Change is so gripping that those who are fans of anything witchy or paranormal should definitely give it a read!

A mesmerising read that drew me in from page 1. Beautiful author craft, a captivating story and some really great characters.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this free eARC in exchange for an honest review. I'm so sorry that I wound up finishing after the release!

Seriously, I regret not reading this faster (the end of the semester and other ARCs I was hoping to finish on time got in the way). But, uh. I started at about 5:30pm on the 25th at 20%, and I read straight through until I finished at 4am. I could not put this book down, even if I had a big gap between that first 20% and the last 80%. That's entirely on me. I am astounded that, at the time of writing this, this book has less than a hundred ratings on Goodreads. I know it only just came out, but still. Holy shit.

The pros: Everything. Literally, what can I say? Fucking everything. From concept to execution, from characters to plot to worldbuilding, this is a masterpiece. It is beautifully written, all of the characters are unique and fascinating, the way magic works is amazing and feels so real, the setting and the time period and the history and just AAAAAAA!!! ALL OF IT! I started going insane in my friends and I's Discord server in the middle of the night because I just needed to get out all of my feelings about this book as I was reading it, in particular the last 20%. Completely unintelligible to everyone but me, but who cares.

The cons: This book is amazing. I genuinely cannot recall a single issue I had with it. Even in other five-star books I've read, I usually can find something to nitpick - I can't here. Absolutely nothing comes to mind. Maybe a couple things were a little predictable? But I can't even say I mind. It still felt like everything was naturally built-up to and foreshadowed. I have nothing negative to say.

As soon as I have the money to do so, I am buying myself a copy of this book. Looking online all I'm seeing are paperbacks (I prefer hardcovers) but I will take what I can get. I loved every second of this, I'm going to coerce my fiancé to read it. Get this book.

In a small town in the foothills of the mountains of eastern Tennessee, three young people with innate magic find their lives twisted together as they’re targeted by a darker power.

Nora Jo is the town school teacher, but her witchy powers lead the townspeople to distrust her and keep her at arms length. Eventually this leads to her losing the teaching position and accepting an apprenticeship with a mysterious man who claims to be able to teach her to use her powers.

Kate is the oldest child in her family and has what they call ‘fits’ wherein the receives snippets of the future. After several visions of her meeting with the same boy, she sets out to make the vision a reality.

Oliver has just returned from Europe where he fought in WWI. There he lost a close friend, damaged his lungs and spirit, but gained the ability to see and communicate with ghosts.

I appreciated the different choices each character makes throughout the story based on their perspectives and beliefs as it made them a little more real.

*spoilery* I’m not sure the demon possession story line was up my alley, but I can respect the way it was developed. Particularly the fact that what they wanted most was connection after being separated from the whole.

📖 Bookish Thoughts
This had an interesting premise with a historical setting, eerie Appalachian vibes, and hints of magic. Unfortunately it didn’t quite land for me. The pacing was inconsistent and slow for the majority of the book. I also struggled to connect with any of the main characters. And I really really didn’t like the ending.

That said, I think this could appeal to readers who enjoy slower paced, character-driven stories.

🗓 Pub Date: May 6, 2025
Thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for the ARC. All thoughts are my own.

In Nicole Jarvis’s new novel, A Spell for Change, three outsiders—two white, one Black—struggle to understand their magical gifts and their place in the community of Chatuga, a small town in 1920s Appalachia. Kate’s visions of the future are disruptive and terrifying, and her family is always at risk of losing even the precarious, underpaid jobs available to Black workers in Chatuga. Oliver, son of the town’s powerful mill owner, returned from the war in Europe with a lung condition, a ferocious case of survivor’s guilt, and the ability to see the dead. As the local schoolmistress, Nora Jo perpetually battles the town’s conservatism and mistrust of her education, and she can’t help but feel tempted when a stranger comes to town offering to teach her to use her inherited magical powers.

It’s always refreshing to read historical fantasy in a setting that’s not been done a thousand times, and Jarvis has a gift for the sensory delights of the concrete historical detail. Foods and gardening show up time and again, with close attention paid to what’s available season by season. When a character walks out into her garden to see what’s blooming, I felt like I could just about taste the strawberries myself. Still, the book doesn’t allow itself to lapse into nostalgia for bygone ways of life. The characters are keenly aware—to the point of anachronism, which I am fine with—of the prejudices that shape where they’re able to go and what they’re able to get away with. Nora Jo can’t plan to marry the girl she has a crush on, but she can trust her whiteness and family background to shield her from the worst consequences of the town’s mistrust. When Kate takes a part-time job helping Nora Jo’s white landlady, she’s cautious about accepting kindness that might have strings attached.

The book’s clear-eyed about the benefits and drawbacks of living in a small community like Chatuga. Our three protagonists all belong to marginalized groups—Oliver is disabled, Kate’s Black and disabled, and Nora Jo is queer—and they’re perpetually having to navigate the contexts where it’s acceptable for them to be those things, vs. the much more frequent contexts where they have to downplay their differences for the comfort of those in power. The town’s smallness makes it harder for people who fall outside of the norm to create community for themselves. Kate loves her home while recognizing that a bigger city offers more opportunities; Nora Jo is constantly having to explain the value of education to those around her; and Oliver never knew true friendship until he went off to war and met a whole bunch of new people. The thing about small towns is that the people you’ve got are the people you’ve got.

If small town living has its downsides, though, it also offers certain protections. The same reverend who terrorized Kate as a child in the certainty that her visions were a sign of demonic possession is also the only person in town who knows how to conduct a proper exorcism—which becomes a going concern when demons start showing up in Chatuga. Oliver may resent his family, but it’s the ghost of his grandfather that comes closest to protecting him from what’s ahead. For Nora Jo, the sense that nobody in her community understands her is exactly what makes her vulnerable to the influence of an outsider who’s promising that he can uncover and nurture her latent magical gifts. Jarvis doesn’t attempt to resolve this tension. A small, tight-knit community like Chatuga can hold and protect the same people it refuses to see in their wholeness. Even when the dangers have passed, Chatuga still won’t offer a space for Kate and Nora Jo to harness and practice their magic.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, A Spell for Change is at its weakest when its characters feel most divorced from their community contexts. The romances feel undercooked, which wasn’t a huge problem in Nora Jo’s case, as her romance is clearly a side plot. But as Kate’s romance with Oliver grows, it gets weirder and weirder that she’s thinking so little about the possible impact on her family and community if something goes sideways for them.

Oliver’s the son of a white property owner in town, a man who’s shown himself to be ruthless in protecting his business interests and his plans for Oliver. A white man with a grudge is a potentially existential risk not just to Kate, but to her family and the whole Black community in Chatuga, and the book never seems to grapple with the full weight of this fact. I wasn’t convinced by Kate’s decision to seek out Oliver in the first place, and the ostensible reason they continue meeting—to better understand their magical powers—never seems to make much progress. All in all, the romance doesn’t achieve the level of urgency that might have made sense of the real dangers a Black woman in Jim Crow Tennessee would risk by dating a white man.

The book’s climactic battle, when it comes, brings a sharp change in tone and pacing, despite kicking off with a lore drop that felt abrupt rather than comfortably foreshadowed. Demons, possession, and blood magic all come flooding into frame, and it’s up to our three heroes to save themselves and their town. The climax hits hard, and I wished the prior two-thirds of the book had been as tightly written and propulsive. (One thing about me, I love plot more than I love setting.) An imperfect, but intriguing, Appalachian fantasy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for the eARC! In exchange, please find my honest review:

In A Spell for Change, Jarvis sets the scene in a small Tennessee town in the aftermath of the first world war over the course of a few months of summer. Jarvis’ sense of time and place bleed through the text, transporting the reader to Chatuga - a town surrounded by woods and caves, filled with hard-working folk, and struck through with rivers of tension, division, and magic.

Jarvis excels where it comes to establishing atmosphere. As the three main characters of the novel take turns bringing the reader into their lives and touring them around town, a rich, moody feeling settles in, a sensation not unlike the hot humidity of a southern summer day, building, slowly inevitably, towards something. The Chatuga that Jarvis creates feels inhabited and tangible, and the characters feel just as real - damaged and troubled and proud and stubborn all in their own ways.

The slow-building atmosphere is so thick, and the lives of the characters so meticulously constructed, that when the big plot elements come to fruition in the third act, it almost feels out of place, in a way. Having sat on the ending of the book for several days now, I do think that the dissonance is rather the point: we can know our lives are changing, and either plan for or resist those changes, but that doesn’t stop Even Bigger Changes that we have no hope of preparing for from striking on top of that, and recontextualizing everything in their wake. However, Jarvis’ style, which is well-suited for the moodier, slower buildup, feels stilted in some of the places in which the plot moves quick and vicious. I found myself not fully feeling the impact of some of the sweeping, emotional finale-related events simply because they felt so out of place. Which, again, may have been the point (seldom in the actual moment of loss do we have the ability to feel it deeply), but it feels worth mentioning regardless.

With characters, Jarvis clearly has a lot of love for Nora Jo, Kate, and Oliver. All three have distinct voices, personality, and history. All are flawed, but in unique ways which make sense for their histories. I felt attached to all of them, and truly wanted things to turn out alright for them. Spoilers: Things turn out alright for two of the three.

All that said - this is not a light, beach read, or even a cozy, witchy one. A Spell for Change is dark and moody. It asks questions, and answers only some of them. In this small, Appalachian town trauma is real, and so is magic, and so are demons - but so is love, in its many forms. A Spell for Change is the narrative in which all those things overlap.

2.5 stars

“A Spell for Change” follows three young people in a small Tennessee town who are each wrapped up in magic. Nora Jo, spinster and schoolteacher, realizes she has the potential to be a powerful witch. Kate is struck by dark visions of the future which incapacitate her. Oliver, wealthy but wounded in war, can now speak to the dead. All three find their fates intertwined as demons try to take advantage of their powers. I enjoyed the historical fiction aspect of the tale, but found the magic a little wanting. I like Nora Jo as a character, but I do feel the “single outcast school mistress in a religious town” trope a little tired. I found Kate compelling only at times, and no matter how hard I tried I absolutely could not stand or root for Oliver. This book’s best redeeming quality is that the writing quality is quite good, and it is well paced.

3.5 / 5 stars
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For the majority of this book, I was sure that I would rate it 4 or 4.5 stars, but the ending was just…. no. And that’s really disappointing because I was really loving the book up til then, even though it is a lot slower paced than the books I usually love.

It really takes its sweet time getting the plot going, so for a long while you really aren’t sure where the plot’s going and what the ultimate goal is, and yet it’s written in a way that nonetheless made me eager to keep reading. The convergence point of the three POVs is also unclear for a long time, since Nora Jo rarely interacts with Kate and Oliver, but somehow that did not impede my enjoyment of the story. I loved the setting, which is almost cozy at times, but always with an undercurrent of danger, with the POV characters’ engaging in all sorts of behaviours that were highly stigmatised at the time (interracial and lesbian/homosexual relatioships, and witchcraft). The town felt alive and very vivacious at that. I had no trouble picturing the landscapes our protagonists traversed throughout the narrative.

As for the three POVs, Kate’s was probably my favourite, but I liked reading all of them. Kate and Oliver’s relationship is built up very well and I soon fell in love with their relationship. The romance between Nora Jo and Gloria, on the other hand, felt quite underdeveloped unfortunately. The book initially peaked my interest mainly because I love reading queer fantasy, but honestly, the sapphic relationship ended up being one of my least favourite things about the book. Nora Jo and Gloria already have an established relationship before the beginning of the story, even if it is only platonic at the time. As such, their relationship doesn’t really get built up during the plot, as Kate and Oliver’s does, and should already feel like a close (friend)ship from the very first on-page interaction. Unfortunately that just wasn’t the case.

However, my biggest gripe, as mentioned earlier, is the ending. It became pretty clear who the ‘betrayer’ character was gonna be, and that demons would somehow play a role in the climax around the halfway point. To be clear, I did not mind that the twist was foreseeable. The demonic activity and its Christian background were thoroughly forshadowed, but once the demons actually appeared it all just got very messy, and not in a good way. The demons appeared, were clearly evil and could be defeated with Christian symbology, so they were definitely Christianity-coded, but there was nothing about anything about the world’s cosmology beyond that. Some people aren’t gonna mind that, but for me it just felt weird to just have this one type of magical creature and that’s it. I mean witchcraft does exist and some of the explanations there also tie it in with religious belief in general, but the world-building just feels very barebones and thus incomplete.
I was also quite bummed about the death of one of the POV characters at the end, but not in a «I’m bawling my eyes out» way, but more in a «this feels weird and not right?» kinda way. I really don’t know how to explain it, to be honest, but it just didn’t hit emotionally, even though I really liked the character.

Also this is totally a nitpick, but why were they all suddenly naked in the cave? Did their clothes like burn off or? It is such a minor detail, but because it was never actually explained I kept wondering why which in turn kept distracting me from the actual plot.

4⭐️

✅ An atmospheric and spooky historical fantasy
✅ Multiple POVs with good character exploration

❌ Slightly predictable plot
❌ Didn’t fully understand the motivations of the main antagonist

I read this as an ARC on NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. This was a surprisingly spooky book which features witchcraft, ghosts and demons while being set in a small town in Tennessee during the early 1920s. You follow 3 characters who each are trying to understand and control their strange magical abilities, whilst also dealing with their own personal and societal challenges within their local community. I really liked how this book was a very character-focused story and touched on wider topics around race, sexuality, and family tradition. You spend a lot of time with each character and get a good sense of the emotional struggles they are dealing with.

The fantasy aspect of this story went in a direction I wasn’t fully expecting when going into this book, and I have to say the final 20% of the book felt quite different to the rest. I was also a little frustrated at the naivety of one of the main characters, which drove the plot forward but led to quite a predictable ‘twist’.

Aside from the personal journeys of each character, it was difficult to grasp how each of the stories would come together and what the bigger picture would be. While you are rewarded with a character convergence, the main antagonists of the book didn’t really become truly apparent until right at the end, and their motivations felt a little underdeveloped.

Despite this, I really enjoyed the slowly unraveling mystery and I did feel as though each character’s journey had a fitting ending. The dark, spooky atmosphere was well captured in the writing and made it an overall quite immersive reading experience.

This story is told in the alternating voices of the three main characters: Kate, Oliver, and Nora Jo. Kate has always been troubled with predictions of the future, and no matter what she does, she can't change the outcome. Oliver Chadwick Jr returned from the Great War, disabled & with the ability to see ghosts. He is haunted by the death of his best friend, who gave up his life in the trenches, in order to spare Oliver. Nora Jo Barker’s mother and grandmother were witches, but she hasn't ever practiced witchcraft herself. She has always been an outsider trying to fit in - she became the new teacher when the old one retired, but when her unorthodox ideas lead to her dismissal, she gets offered a magical apprenticeship from a witch from the mountains,. When a dark force begins stalking the town, Kate, Oliver, and Nora Jo are all forced to to determine their own destinies as they discover not all magic is used for good.

I enjoyed this book up until the final few chapters when it turned into the demon possession and a battle scene between good and evil. That is just a personal preference, as I would rather read about the magic and ghosts aspect of the story. I did feel like the pacing was a little slow up until the very end and then it really sped up. I liked Kate and Oliver's characters, but I never felt like Nora Jo really developed enough to get a good grasp on her character. Overall this is a solid 4 out of 5.

Thank you Netgalley and Titan Books for the free eArc in return for an honest review.

I went on a bit of a Netgalley requesting spree and did not expect to get all of the books I requested! Really pleased to be accepted for this one.

Nora Jo - local school teacher falls on hard luck and takes a career change as an apprentice witch

Oliver - soldier returned from war with physical and mental health impacted, he also sees ghosts.

Kate - Taking on any job she can find to support her family, she also has seizures accompanied by visions of the future.

The three seemingly unconnected characters all have an experience with magic, which brings them together in a way they never thought would happen.

I very much liked the characters, Kate especially. The early connection with Kate and Oliver worked, but Nora Jo didn't seem to link in until the 'big thing' happens at about 80%.

Thought I enjoyed the setting (both time and location) I'd have enjoyed a little more fleshed out descriptions of the characters.

I struggled with approx 80-95% as it almost seemed like it came from nowhere. Yes, looking back there were some small hints about what may happen, but to me, not obvious at all.

This review sounds like I hated it, I really didn't, I just thought I could have had a bit more oomph to it.

I picked this up beause I enjoy all kinds of witchy paranormal type stories. Nicole James is a new author for me and I enjoy trying new authors. This is Jarvis' third book.

Description:
Kate has always been troubled by visions of the future. No matter what she does, her disturbing premonitions are always realized—often with terrible consequences. But Kate has swirling, romantic dreams of a strange boy, and a chance meeting in the woods.

Oliver returned from the Great War disabled, disillusioned, and able to speak to the dead. Haunted by the death of his best friend and his traumatic memories of the trenches, Oliver realizes that his ability to communicate with spirits may offer the chance of closure he desperately seeks.

Nora Jo’s mother and grandmother were witches, but she has never nurtured her own power. Always an outsider, she has made a place for herself in the town as Chatuga's schoolteacher, clinging to the independence the job affords her. But when her unorthodox ideas lead to her dismissal, salvation comes in the form of a witch from the mountains who offers her a magical apprenticeship.

Rumours of a dark force stalking the town only push Kate, Oliver and Nora Jo onwards in their quest to determine their own destinies. But as they close in on their goals, each will have to consider whether what they seek is worth the price.

My Thoughts:
Nora Jo and Oliver were different and I think that is why they connected. Nora Jo with her flashes of vision into the future, and Oliver with his ability to see and talk to ghosts. There was a lot of turmoil for both of them. They are having to struggle to get through the many hurdles. The challenges are numerous. The atmosphere in the Appalachian small town seemed oppressive with its racial bias and class differences. I hadn't expected the demonic slant to the story so that was a surprising development. I enjoyed the plot and the characters.

Thanks to Titan Books through Netgalley for an advance copy.

Hello again dear reader or listener, I need you to picture the terrified child holding a cross meme and, instead of the cross, to picture a box of antihistamines, and that is me currently with everything blooming all around me. I love spring, I do. My hay fever however, oh she chuckles maniacally. Why should you care about all this? No reason whatsoever!

With thanks to the team at Titan for offering an eARC of Nicole Jarvis’ latest book, let’s get to my honest thoughts that are actually relevant, shall we?

I was fresh off watching Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (and Loving it – seriously go watch that movie it is incredible) when this book came to my attention and to say the timing was excellent is an understatement. Supernatural happenings in a 1920s southern American town? Gimme. Also, having read Jarvis’ debut The Lights of Prague and greatly enjoying it, I knew this was an author I wanted to read more from. The final decider in me picking this up was the byline “For fans of Katherine Arden”, which I am, most ardently.

I’ll see myself out. Blame the Zirtec.

With Jarvis’ story set right after the first World War, I could see the connection to Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts, a book I deeply loved and still think about. As well as for the ghostly happenings of course. But that’s not all A Spell for Change was!

Told through three POVs that I liked each for the own merits, Jarvis navigates the fraught lives of three individuals who are about to learn how far they are willing to go to fight against the injustices of their society. For truly if you were disabled, a woman, Black, or queer, in Tennessee of the ‘20s you were definitely not having a roarin’ time. Jarvis does not shy away from showing the realities of racism, classism, and overall lack of rights for anyone that wasn’t an abled white man. But she does so in ways that are so deceptively simple and to the point, and yet to visceral and evocative that you can’t help but feel everything the characters do, or at the very least easily relate to them in one way or another. The helplessness of it all truly hits hard. The author takes her time to build up tensions and foreshadow what is to come so well that you always find yourself intrigued and needing to know more but also unable to shake off a sense of wrongness that permeates everything.

Jarvis also renders ambience so well, from the deceptive warmth but not quite of Spring, to the stifling summer heat, or the chill that offers relief from it but also brings goosebumps on your skin typical of deep caves. Moreover, she presents us with more horror elements than I was expecting, which was a delightful and welcome surprise. They created the right juxtapositions to all the soft and tender moments that really make you care for the characters and their budding – yet forbidden – relationships. By weaving the natural beauty of the land into the lives of the protagonists, while also underscoring it with the horrific echoes of the past she rendered a deeply layered canvas of a story that resonates with the modern reader. Even her tackling of PTSD, and how it was viewed/understood at the time, was done very well, which is something I always keep an eye on.

Although the first half of the book is fairly slow going, which in my opinion was not a bad thing as it was not a slog, the second half ramps up onto an action-packed final act that shifts several gears and delivers more than one gut punch, but also offers super satisfying resolutions that I was glad to see. In fact, Jarvis does such a good job of building it all up, enriching it with folklore and stories passed down through generations, and thus making you care for all the things that are at stake if the protagonists don’t succeed at getting to the bottom of the mysteries even more. And yet that sense of wrongness, of something coming to ruin everything they have fought so hard for, would not leave me. I was ready to get hurt, dear reader. And I kinda was, not gonna lie to you, but it all made so much sense for the story and where each character was with their life that I was not even mad about it in the end. Did I want to shake the characters a bit from time to time? Sure. But that to me is a sign of good writing because I was invested rather than indifferent and just waiting to see where the story would go!

A Spell for Change is everything you want in a leisurely weekend read: it is a heartfelt, intriguing, and at times eerie tale of defiant people trying to carve out space for themselves to peacefully exist true to themselves, in a world that tries to tell them they have no right to. It presents us with food for thought while also granting escapism, wonder, and supernatural phenomena that I will not spoil the exact nature of. Ultimately it is a story about love, both familial and romantic, that pushes us to be better and fight for more.

The book comes out tomorrow May 6th through Titan Books and if anything I mentioned has you curious, dear reader, I suggest you run to grab a copy!

Until next time,
Eleni A.E.

While the Appalachian setting in A Spell for Change was richly atmospheric, the writing itself felt pedestrian—an attempt at lyrical prose that landed more awkwardly than artfully. The use of dialect and colloquial language often came off as forced rather than authentic, which pulled me out of the story rather than grounding me in it. I found it difficult to invest in the characters or the plot, and the tone skewed toward the younger end of YA, which may appeal more to readers newer to Appalachian literature. The horror elements, though intriguing, felt thematically dissonant—where a nature-based threat might have better complemented the story’s roots, we got something that didn’t quite fit. Not a terrible read, but not one that left much of an impression either.