Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death.
But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.ġ942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. As a girl, Altha's mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.ġ619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. Even when one character’s chapter ended with a cliffhanger, the novel was well paced, so that I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out what happened.2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. I didn’t feel the need to rush through a chapter or two to find out what was happening with another character. Further, each woman’s story was interesting in its own right. They each have a distinct voice, too, which means there’s very little confusion about which character or timeline I was reading.
Each of the women is a fully-developed character whose thoughts and deeds feel appropriate for the time in which her story takes place.
I don’t always like multiple timeline/multiple narrative novels, but Hart gets the balance right here. Their magic is used to heal, for the most part, connecting them to nature and its balance of life and death. Added to this suspicion are the villagers’ whispers of witchcraft, and soon Violet is on a mission to find out more about her relative.įor the most part, the Weyward women would qualify as healers, but there is a touch of magical realism in this novel, as the women’s affinity with nature takes the form of a bond with insects (and a particular crow) that can only be attributed to a form of magic. As she starts to find her place in the nearby village and build a life on her own, she discovers artifacts of her aunt’s life – and even further back – that suggest that there was something more to Violet. Kate flees to Weyward cottage, which she inherited from her great-aunt Violet, whom she barely knew.
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