Cailynn's Blog

Alix E. Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches is a gothic fantasy woven with spells, suffrage, and the strength of sisterhood. In this review, we explore how the novel captures both the magic of resistance and the haunting echoes of historical witch trials. Like The Girl Who Knew The Medicine, it asks: what happens when women’s power — whether sacred or chosen — becomes a matter of survival?

In The Death of Jane Lawrence, Caitlin Starling transforms marriage into a gothic nightmare of secrets, rituals, and forbidden knowledge. This review explores why the novel lingers long after the last page, from its occult imagery to its suffocating dread — and how it echoes the same fears that inspired The Girl Who Knew The Medicine. Would you step into Lindridge Hall, or run before the door closed?

Explore witch trial rituals from Salem to Scotland — how fear shaped accusations and still haunts horror fiction today.

The Year of the Witching review explores Alexis Henderson’s haunting gothic horror about prophecy, forbidden woods, and a young woman caught between faith and forbidden power. Immanuelle Moore is raised in a puritanical community, but the Darkwood calls her toward secrets that could unravel everything. Like The Girl Who Knew The Medicine, Henderson’s novel asks how societies decide who wields power — and whether it’s a sacred ancestral calling or a destructive curse.

Why is 13 the witch’s number in Europe, but meaningless in African traditions? In Europe, witches were bound by superstition and scapegoating. In Nguni cultures, they were bound by intent and the will of the ancestors. This blog explores how fear, malice, and storytelling shaped the figure of the witch — and how The Girl Who Knew The Medicine reimagines that legacy in a modern South African setting.

This House of Hunger review dives into Alexis Henderson’s lush gothic horror about bloodmaids, aristocratic estates, and power disguised as protection. Marion enters the Countess’s household seeking safety — but finds herself consumed by rituals that blur the line between devotion and destruction. We’ll explore the novel’s themes, its resonance with African ritual fears, and why its corrupted rituals reminded me of The Girl Who Knew The Medicine.

The witch is never just one figure. In 17th-century Europe, she was a scapegoat, accused of consorting with the devil. In Nguni traditions, the umthakathi was feared as a sorcerer who used ukuthakatha to harm. Yet, alongside them were cunning women, white witches, inyangas, and sangomas — healers who balanced fear with reverence. This blog explores the fragile line between healer and heretic, accusation and intent, and how The Girl Who Knew The Medicine was born from that hau