Disappointing! Reminded me very strongly of [b:The Once and Future Witches|49504061|The Once and Future Witches|Alix E. Harrow|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1582634494l/49504061._SY75_.jpg|74822550], which I was only so-so on and still started grittier and more interesting than this. I started reading the author note at the back (whoops, bad sign), McKay's related to Nathaniel Hawthorne and one of the nastiest Salem witch trials judges as well as a victim and this was the entire impetus for the book? I thought I'd give it until page 50 to get interesting, but on page 34 the nice good pure dream fairies are giving a main character a prophetic dream and....

"The entire balance of magic was at stake. The moon was full. The time was nigh. The prophecy had foretold it."

k, thx, bye!

(14 august 2023)

Witches

I really wanted to love this. Witches in a tea shop, it sounded so great. But I'm bored out of my skull. We're constantly changing perspective, including of people/ ghosts who have uncertain relevance to the story. I'm sure the ghosts will be helped by one of the witches at some point, but it's taking too long. And the witches themselves. I should love them. Three capable women, living together, running a tea shop together. Magic, herbs, tea. But I get no sense of community. They live in the same house, they talk to each other, they're supposedly friends, but they each do their own thing, and the two adults are mostly bickering.
The whole story lacks cohesion. I read about half, and I've had enough. Maybe it'll get fixed in the second half, but I don't want to put in the time anymore. ( )

Atmospheric and witchy. I was surprised at the fantasy elements since I thought it was going to be folk magic not, like, magic magic. ( )

The Gilded Age was a fascinating time in history, on the cusp of so much discovery and invention and a whole new way of life (sometimes positive, sometimes negative). Witches have traditionally been women who have had a power and a knowledge that wasn't supposed to be available to them. Society, when not punishing them to death, often shunned them, except for those furtive moments that they needed these wise women's counsel or skills, herbal and otherwise. Combine the Gilded Age in New York with witches and you have the potential for an amazing novel, which is exactly what Ami McKay's The Witches of New York is.

Eleanor St. Clair and Adelaide Thom run an apothecary/tea shop in New York called Tea and Sympathy. They are both witches. Seventeen year old Beatrice Dunn is looking for an escape from her boring life when she sees an advertisement looking for a shopgirl for the aforementioned store with the intriguing caveat that "those averse to magic need not apply." Beatrice is a witch too, although she doesn't know it yet. What she does know is that this job is meant for her so she heads to New York City at the same time that Cleopatra's Needle is making its way down the rail line. Tea and Sympathy is a cozy and appealing place but also quietly subversive, a place where women are on the verge of being able to show their power, to claim suffrage, to wear less restrictive clothing, and to manifest their own autonomy among other things. Because it is this, it is also the target of hatred, especially in the character of a local reverend intent on stamping out his perception of "evil" even as he brings evil with him.

The story is a charming mix of history and magic. It believes in communing with the dead, ghosts and spiritualism, potions and palmistry. In other words, it captures beautifully the spirit and atmosphere of the Gilded Age. Eleanor, Adelaide, and Beatrice are intriguing characters and Perdu the raven, who is something more than a raven is a marvelous touch. The plot is mesmerizing and the tension rises apace, taking this from a quaint, witchy tale to a desperate howl against the patriarchy. It's an engrossing story of the power of friendship and of a modernizing world that has to make room for powerful women in a whole new way. My book club was divided on it but I thoroughly enjoyed it. ( )