Note: I read this book and wrote this review back in 2021 but realized I had yet to post it on here. So, just in time for the spooky season, here’s a recommendation if you’re the type of person who wants to see more of Hocus Pocus 1693!
The Year of the Witching was the perfect blend of historical fiction, creepiness and feminism! I’m so glad I waited to read it during the spooky season though I feel a little bad about waiting so long since this was a NetGalley book I received an ARC of last year and probably should have read much earlier.
The Year of the Witching actually tackles quite a few issues. The setting, the town of Bethel, is a very Puritan type of place where people of darker skin are outcasts and women are meant to sit down, shut up, and do whatever the men tell them to. But there’s an additional factor for why everyone should listen to . The Darkwood, the former home of witches and dark magic, surrounds the town of Bethel. Now, in our main character Immanuelle’s time, the Prophet (the holy man of the town) tells everyone to stay out of the wood because it’s still cursed even though the old Prophet killed the witches. But Immanuelle(an outspoken, mixed race girl whose very existence goes against everything Bethel stands for) soon discovers that the witches are still very much alive and they are very interested in her.
What ends up happening is a series of plagues that descend upon the town, just as Immanuelle starts to discover what her and her mother have to do with the Darkwood and the secrets it holds. It honestly gets a little creepy at times with the way the stages of the plague presents. People literally try to smash their own heads into walls until they die at one point.
Immanuelle was a great character and I really enjoyed her PoV and her journey as she discovers more about herself in a world where she’s everything her town doesn’t want.
Read. Write. Ink. 