“Fate is a story people tell themselves so they can believe everything happens for a reason, that the whole awful world is fitted together like some perfect machine, with blood for oil and bones for brass. That every child locked in her cellar or girl chained to her loom is in her right and proper place.
She doesn’t much care for fate.”

Oh wow. With The Once and Future Witches, I think Alix E. Harrow has cemented herself as an auto-buy author for me! I read The Ten Thousand Doors of January earlier this year and absolutely fell in love with it, so this book quickly became one of my most anticipated books of the year, and it didn’t disappoint!

Harrow’s prose is just as stunning as ever. It feels quite magical in a way that’s hard to describe. It really envelops you in this story and into these characters in a really unique way and I love it.

I loved the story itself. I just finished taking a literature class on witches so I think I appreciated this novel in a way I wouldn’t otherwise without the historical context that I now have. But either way, I absolutely loved learning about the Eastwood sisters—I loved their stark differences but their same sense of heart and passion.

I did have two relatively minor problems with the story, though. First, I thought the romances were slightly underdeveloped. The story is told in multiple perspectives, with two of the three having romance plot lines. And while obviously romance was not the central focus of the book I did feel that the relationships could have been flushed out a little stronger. Secondly, I think that other than our main characters and a few key side characters, there were lots of people introduced who I would forget about rather quickly. It wasn’t too hindering on my reading experience, but sometimes a name would be mentioned and I would find myself wondering who that character was and being unable to give any concrete details about them.

But overall, a really great read! So excited to see what this brilliant author does next!