Writer's Parlour

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?

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.