October Book Recommendation

As the spooky season settles around us, many readers enjoy escaping into the fall season with something atmospheric and spell-binding. The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow is a powerful novel of magic and the suffragette movement, where three sisters in the late 1800s use witchcraft to change the course of history.

In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. When the Eastwood sisters—James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna—join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch’s movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote—and perhaps not even to live—the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

Other stories that weave in rich details, themes of discrimination and civil rights, and folklore include The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar and The Age of Witches by Louisa Morgan. You can request these books at the library in print, digital, or audio formats, or go online to find them through our catalogue: http://library.brucecounty.on.ca/