The Year of the Witching

If you like this review and want to look at my other reviews by going here to my blog fantasybooknerd.com

???Evil wears the skin of good men???

Alexis Henderson???s debut is a wonderfully glorious dark tale of witches, religious oppression and secrets.

I have seen mixed reviews for Alexis Henderson???s novel, The Year of the Witching, but for me I have to say from the outset that I loved it. I found Alexis Henderson??? story to be beguiling and evocative, and it seriously clicked with me.

The tale starts with the birth of our Protagonist, Immanuelle who lives in the town of Bethel. Bethel is a place that is governed by a strict puritanical religion and watched over by the Prophet, who maintains his power with the aid of his apostles.

The prologue immediately conjures a feeling of disquiet and we know that Immanuelle has a destiny, one that will unfold as she grows.

The story then jumps seventeen years to show us Immanuelle, kneeling prostrate at an altar awaiting the blessing of the father in the form of blood from the sacrificial lamb.

As Henderson tells the tale of Immanuelle, we quickly learn that Bethel is not a particularly nice place to live and that Immanuelle is considered to be somewhat of a pariah. Her mother, whilst betrothed to be one of the many wives of the Prophet, had a clandestine affair with a man from the outskirts. This does not go well, as Miriam is cast out and the poor man suffers an even worse fate.

This is a strange world in which the religion resembles a Christian religion, with the main deity being the Father, and that the opposing force is The Mother. Who we later learn is called The Dark Mother, not just because she resides in the darkness!

The town of Bethel is surrounded by The Dark Wood. The cursed home of the Dark Mother and her coven of witches. All are forbidden from entering the Dark Wood and all those who enter are immediately suspected of being witches. However, one day. On return from the market in which she must sell her ram in order to alleviate the harsh winter that her family have experienced. Immanuelle is drawn into the dark wood. And there, she is given the journal of her dead mother. The secrets that are held within will change everything. Both for Immanuelle and for all of Bethel.

This is quite a hard review to write in all honesty. It???s difficult to convey how much I enjoyed this book and not give away plot spoilers, but for you I???ll try.

I have seen many reviews likening this to The Handmaid's Tale, and it does bear a resemblance in that there is oppression both in the form of a Patriarchal religion and the oppression of women. I have also seen it mentioned that this is a horror. However, I found it to be more of a dark fantasy rather than horror.

One of things that really impressed me about the book was Alexis Henderson???s masterful ability to maintain a cloying sense of disquiet throughout the story. Whether it be from the supernatural elements, the oppressiveness of the religion, the duplicitous prophet or even from Immanuelle???s own family. Everything seemed to be off kilter and distorted in some way.

The book is populated by complex, well rounded characters. Immanuelle herself is a superb character that we see grow as the story progresses. In addition to that the other standout characters are her Grandmother Martha, the matriarch of the family, who is both harsh and loving of her granddaughter. The loathsome Prophet, Grant Chambers, whose puritanical and insidious influence spreads throughout all of the town of Bethel and he rules with a rod of iron and fear, unwilling to relinquish even the slightest bit of power. And then there is his son and heir, Ezra Chambers, who sees his father for what he is and wants to change the system.

Added to that, there are the Witches, Lillith and her coven whose influence seeps from the dark wood. She is used as a totem of fear and oppression to keep the women of Bethel in line. However, there is more to the story of Lillith who was banished to the dark wood by the first prophet David Ford, and we see that she is a multi-faceted character that whilst being an object of fear, this is not exactly the truth.

The book is peppered with a number of different prejudices. Not only are prejudices based on gender, but there is also colour of skin and class, and we learn that these views have a grip in all parts of the society. Immanuelle for instance, is of mixed heritage, culture and race. And she is not accepted by either those in the town of Bethel or the folk in The Outskirts.

Additionally, Alexis Henderson does a fantastic job of building the world around her characters, mapping out a well thought out world, complex political and religious systems. As we move through the book, she cleverly expands the story to encompass other parts of the world. The Dark Wood is malignant and foreboding, the Outskirts where the poor and the dispossessed, and those who are not white of skin reside. It then moves out to the towns around Bethel and gives us more of an insight of what lies beyond the gates

I found The Year of The Witching to be an engrossing and utterly compelling book. It has some very dark themes, but I did find the ultimate theme was one of change and emancipation. Not just from the shackles of oppression, but from the past and tradition and Alexis Henderson masterfully crafts subtle creeping atmosphere into the essence of the story and I for one loved it.

Oh, and just to mention that I actually listened to this story on audiobook which was fantastically narrated by Brianna Coleman.

Enchanted by this brutal and gripping religious horror, one of my favorite subgenres. Incredible worldbuilding. I am chronically ill and disabled, and the imagery of this world made me forget about high levels of pain for long stretches at a time. Thrilled to find out just now that it has an upcoming sequel!

I'm feeling a 2.5 - 3 ⭐ with this one. Overall the book was fairly engaging when the action started, but I wasn't really invested in any of the characters except maybe Ezra, although he started feeling a bit like your regular YA tortured hero-prince halfway through.

There were certainly a ton of cliches used here - I predicted correctly that Leah was gonna die, that the Prophet would turn out pedophilic, that he would somehow try to marry Immanuelle, and that Immanuelle would somehow turn out OP witchy by the end. It all kinda feels like regular Judeo-Christiany cult tropes, and I'm generally just not into that. I'm not offended or horrified, just not that excited about it. I also feel like i've read about an almost identical cult in Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, also led by someone they called Prophet.

The action did keep me going though, which is how I blazed through most of the book in a day. I was a little confused by the ending bit: Why did the Prophet wanted to marry Immanuelle at all? What were his motivations for doing so? If he lusted after her cos she reminded him of her mother to whom he had been betrothed, why didn't he seduce her sooner since he showed no qualms seducing Leah at that young an age? If it was power play, why does he need to marry her at all when he's already arrested her as a witch, has her in his dungeons and can do whatever he wants with her?

Overall, this was fine. It wasn't super annoying or boring, but neither was it particularly memorable or refreshing or had any thing to say. If you're into cult-ish horror, then this might be worth checking out.

For all that this story started well, creepy and gripping, with religious lockdown of women (hence comparisons with The Handmaid's Tale), the second half fell into well-worn tropes and predictable plot twists.  Which might be cool - I don't read much horror so I don't know how much is expected in the genre versus how much is overused. 

I found the character development uneven, the leaps of logic unexplained, the dialogue a weird mixture of formal (One character literally apologises for using a “colloquialism” which felt very out of place in an otherwise normal chat with a stranger). The religion-based lockdown on women's behaviour and movement only applied when the author wanted it to? 

On the other hand, I still finished it, I still wanted to know what happened, I still wanted the bad guy to get their comeuppance and the good guy to win. I think it's a good, scary debut.

This is firmly horror, to the point that my brain was giving me utterly pedestrian dreams such as going to the shops, and doing my favourite work tasks.

I really didn't think I would care about this story as much as I did. Is it the best thing I've ever read? No. Do I wish it had been adult? Yes. But I still found some scenes to be really disturbing and kinda surprised by how dark they were for a YA novel. I loved the main couple in the story but I just wish it had a bit more scenes with them.
Also, the plot got kinda rushed at the end IMO, so it brought my rating down but I really enjoyed this book and it's probably gonna end up on my top 10 reads of the year.

3 to 4 stars. The writing is great and Henderson added beautiful atmosphere. But I so badly wanted her to go “bad” at the end instead of saving a bunch of old christian men. Why is there next to no novels where a woman finds out about the evil witches and joins them instead of working on stopping them?

I changed my rating from a 3 to a 2 because I realized that, only a week or so after finishing the book, I couldn't really remember the ending. I also felt like the explanations that are what I think would make this classified as horror were sort of more “wtf” than me actually being horrified. It just wasn't that great. The heroine is tough and that is cool, the romance is sorta meh. Overall it was fine.

Pros: interesting characters, quite scary and intense

Cons: uncomfortable race relations

Sixteen year old Immanuelle Moore is the daughter of a black man from the Outskirts, who burned on a pyre for having relations with her mother. Her mother was a white bride of the Prophet, who went mad after seeing her lover die. Raised as a good believer in the Holy Scriptures, she doesn't understand why the Darkwood, home of the witches who once terrorized Bethel, calls to her so strongly. When she finally succumbs to that call, she unwittingly unleashes a series of curses on her home.

Immanuelle is a great protagonist, conflicted in her beliefs and desires. She's strong willed and passionate. Her terror of the witches and determination to end the curses were palpable. I loved the slow burn romance with Ezra.

The world itself was terrifying for a liberal reader. Bethel is a closed community with very strict religious rules and no recourse against the hidden evils Immanuelle discovers taking place within the church: abuse of power - physical and sexual - and the subjugation of women.

The division between the villages of the ‘holy' white congregation and the shanty towns on the Outskirts of the black former refugees was stark and left me feeling uncomfortable. I would have thought that with the conversion of the refugees, more intermingling would have occurred. The fact that Lilith, the head witch, was a black woman also left me feeling unsettled as it seems to continue this ‘black is evil, white is good' theme, which is clearly undercut by the churches' abuses on one hand but not really by anything on the other. Yes, Immanuelle fought against the witches, but as she was from the village and not the Outskirts it didn't feel like she broke that aphorism. Nor does Vera, as it's unclear if she ever practiced witchcraft or simply used protective sigils.

The horror elements are very terrifying. There's a lot of blood and the story centres on events in womens' lives that feature blood. The witches are evil and things get so grim I had to take breaks when reading this. Descriptions aren't overly graphic, so though the imagery can be intense, it never feels gratuitous.

The writing is quite lyrical, which brings the world to life and really drives home the terror.

On the whole this is a fantastic story, provided you can handle a horror novel right now.

This book is similar to “The Crucible”, following an extremely religious community that sees any sins done by women as witchcraft. The leader, The Prophet, has many wives and leads this community with a religious fervor. Our heroine, Immanuelle, is the daughter of one of these witches. When a series of afflictions start affecting this community, Immanuelle is led on a path of horrors to figure out how to stop these plagues.

This book wasn't scary, but was spooky. However, for a book that is supposed to be full of horror, I was bored a few times. I think the story is a fresh take on a typical religion/witches based story. The themes throughout the book of feminism, family, sacrifice, and strength were executed well for the most part. Towards the end, the book became a little preachy for me, and I wish the ending had been a little more brutal. However, I think the story and the messages portrayed created an intense, thought-provoking novel. I would recommend this to people that are interested in spooky witch stories.

What a fantastic book, the way the religion in this book worked felt like a mirror to a lot of the way the church has does act. It was magical and yet felt really grounded in problems we have in the real world. If you love books that have a deeper meaning behind the fantastical elements than I highly recommend this book for you!

Hodně lidí ve svých hodnocení zmiňuje, že jim vadí, že příběh nemá hloubko a je neoriginální. To mi nevadí, asi mi teď vyhovuje něco, co zabírá jenom povrch. Jediná oblast, kde mě to mrzelo, byly čarodějnice a legendy o nich, tam jsem doufala, že se dozvíme něco víc. Cool butch wlw babička? Miluju. Love interest, co není idiot? Super. Ještě jsem doufala, že to Immanuelle na konci trochu víc rozjede a dá Prorokovi do nosu. Rozumím, proč tomu tak nebylo, ale moje vnitřní pomstychtivost byla trochu zklamaná. Jinak za mě dobrý. 4.5*

Rating: 3 leaves out of 5
Characters: 2/5
Cover: 3/5
Story: 2.5/5
Writing: 4.5/5
Genre: Horror/Occult
Type: Audio
Worth?: Sure
pedophile

The writing was fine, it was the story and the characters that were utter crap. Instead of going really into depth about the witches they just... dealt the overplayed cliché card and it was stupid. It was very much YA and the prophet was all kinds of triggering. The prophet ruined 50% of the book. It was utterly disgusting. Instead of dealing with the pedo murderous prophet she just let them be. Those damn witches had every freaking right to be pissed and Immi was just like NAH their anger isn't justified. Like all those poor girls' suffering was just nothing to care about and I get that things needed to change, which is fine, but the ending was utter trash.

This started out as a quiet, eerie story about a teenage girl who lives in a Puritan-esqe society that has strict and dark rules regarding women and witchcraft. I can't say when I began to become fully invested, since this quiet, eerie tone continues for quite a while, but by the end I found the plot, atmosphere, climax, and themes (this is pretty brilliantly feminist IMO), to be excellent. I think my biggest critiques are of the pacing and some character development, though Henderson did a great job with the MC. As with a lot of horror books, there are definitely content warnings to research if you pay attention, but I will say Goodreads has this tagged as young adult and that's tricky for me considering there is a lot of reference to off-page statutory rape and child abuse in this society. According to the author, “it occupies the gray space between upper YA and adult,” so I'd go by that. Overall I really enjoyed it and do recommend trying it out despite the mixed-reviews.

It's a book about oppressive religious cult modeled after Christianity, where the witches are not only real but an explicit part of the faith. The setting is vaguely colonial/puritan, so naturally, there is lots of religious trauma, racism, misogyny, etc.

The book opens with a woman giving birth and dying after dropping some cryptic lines that come together much later in the story. The Prophet (church leader) has a harem of battered wives he likes to collect when they're teenagers/girls, and the book doesn't shy away from that fact (up to and including the reveal and death of poor Leah at the Prophet's vile hands.

It's a good book, I'd definitely recommend it to anybody looking for a fictional witch persecution book.

That being said (and if I were to critique one thing), the book feels very YA at times. Kinda like Poppy War, where you have a lot of daaaarrrkk topics and imagery padded with teenage antics. And I know this might come off poorly, but the religion was tame compared to real life puritan culture, in that the FMC not only was educated but had free will and could mouth off to men. Obviously I don't want women oppressed, but if we're gonna make a puritan setting full of blood, creepy church cultists, and witches, we should go all out and make it as bad as it was in real life. 

TL;DR, if you're expecting something like/as dark as The VVitch, prepare to be a little disappointed. It's good, just not terrifying and as bleak as that movie.

I will definitely keep my eye out for this authors books!

This book caught my eye while wandering the aisles at Barnes and Noble. I left that day without purchasing it but couldn't stop thinking about it. Made a trip back to just pick it up and I've just now finished it. It's one of those books you can't seem to put down or stop thinking of. Excited to see a sequel is on the way.