Now She Is Witch by Kirsty Logan

I would like to thank Harvill Secker for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Harvill Secker

Published – 12/1

Price – £16.99 Hardback £7.99 Kindle eBook

She dug her mother's grave in the poison garden so it would stay hidden...

From the snowy winter woods to the bright midnight sun; from lost and powerless to finding your path, Now She is Witch conjures a world of violence and beauty - a world where women grasp at power through witchcraft, sexuality and performance, and most of all through throwing each other to the wolves.

Lux has lost everything when Else finds her, alone in the woods. Her family, her lover, her home - all burned. The world is suspicious of women like her. But Lux is cunning; she knows how to exploit people's expectations, how to blend into the background. And she knows a lot about poisons.

Else has not found Lux by accident. She needs her help to seek revenge against the man who wronged her, and together they pursue him north. But on their hunt they will uncover dark secrets that entangle them with dangerous adversaries.

This is a witch story unlike any other.

It is hard sometimes to think how people experienced the world in the past? It tempting to judge the person on the knowledge you now have – how on earth could you think something we know to be wrong or not possible or moral? It is tempting to think the past was a simple time of absolutes. We tend to use the shorthand we learn in primary and secondary school to make assumptions as to how people lived. But life is hardly ever that simple. Look around at our own world and we’ll see people rarely think and act uniformly. In Kirsty Logan’s fantastic and immersive novel Now She Is Witch we experience a whole world of competing magics, beliefs, societies and even sexualities which delivers a fantastic and surprising tale I absolutely loved to read.

A young woman named Lux arrives at her mother’s cottage to tend to her grave. She is bleeding herself and insured after being exiled from a place of Sanctuary she has been exiled from. Her mother has been executed for being a witch; at the graveside she meets another young woman named Else – they soon have to flee from the ruins of the cottage after an attack from local villagers who have heard Lux has returned. They escape into the mysterious forest and Else requires Lux’s help to murder the man who has done her wrong. Their journey will cross all levels of society; myths and the danger or power of ever being called out as a witch.

I loved this story as it is never predictable and challenges our assumptions of what medieval life may have been like. Cunningly this is a world more adjacent to our own where we have a land named only as the South – forests and villages more akin to what we tend to think of similar to medieval England with a Christian Church as well as a constant fear of a disease we can recognise as the Black Death. Across the nearby sea though there is a land of snow, ice, fire and this is where Dark Witches live which sounds so much like tales of Scandinavia and Iceland. The lack of specific time and place is an advantage here because we can only guess what this world is like. We can’t come burdened with our knowledge of history and that means we are reliant instead on our characters and their interpretation of the world plus Logan’s own third person narration to make us understand how this society works.

The characters are also refreshingly new. Lux is a far more complex character than we initially assume. Our initial meeting makes us think she fits the role of innocent daughter and wide eyed innocent but as the story develops Lux turns into a far more complex character not a simple stereotype. We see a young woman dealing with being cast away by her mother for being infertile; someone who has a skilled knowledge of herbs but also a faith in God which creates a conflict as to whether her actions are good or not and we also find a woman starting to be comfortable with her sexuality and also starting to learn she doesn’t have to take everything at face value and starts to see and understand the contradiction and hypocrisy of her world.

The plotting of the story is really impressive and intricate. We get plunged into the deep end with Lux and Else’s escape and how this soon turns into a mission to kill an unnamed man who Else hates. We get on top a strange ethereal encounter with a theatre troupe who tour the land telling stories and this brings to life how this world accepts its many contradictions believing in Christ and also magic and witches. It all helps the exploration of the various roles that women can have and initially Lux examines if she wishes to always be the innocent Maiden. Later on, we move to Lux working in the household of the land’s Lord and Lady and this too is a strange ecosystem of its own of various social strata and none appear as simple as we usually expect. Lux finds herself both a member of the kitchen staff but also thanks to her knowledge of herbs and poisons a food taster for the Lord. This is the tensest section of the story that exposes Lux to dangers that she has to untangle. This should be the home of the Light of the Land in the form of the human Lord of the world) and there is an interesting look at how the same term is being used for God) but in fact we find this is a place of power games, secrets and betrayals leading to a stunning conclusion.

We also get two interludes one in Lux’s own voice and Else’s own life story which bring all these storylines together and further expose the complexities of this world. Where a Sanctuary was both a place of miracles or forbidden lust or love; and another tale where a young woman arrives in the wrong place at the wrong time and faces the gravest danger.  Throughout there is a theme of the concepts of Good and Evil being far more fluid than the priests and those in power want people to believe and that matches the attitudes towards those labelled witch – wise woman, herbalist, demon-lover, root of evil and more are all used for this single term and for Lux just as she examines what a woman means in a world where ultimately Men are in charge. Lux also has to explore what the terms mean for herself and her own future.

Throughout this journey is the pure joy of reading Logan’s writing. Language changes to suit characters; there are repetitions to underline certain actions and it’s a tale using colour, nature magic and shadow intermixed with light all used to powerful effect that manages the difficult task of being both familiar with its use of magic and folklore but also to regularly wrong foot us about what this story is and who these characters are. Its not a simple story or world; rather than an over-familiar re-telling of myth we get a novel deconstructing and exploring the possible reality behind these stories a d the people who made them.

This is a hugely satisfying and intelligent read. Crossing the lines between historical fiction and fantasy and a gentle reminder for those who lived in this time as well as stories about magic there was a certain belief that magic itself was real (and just possibly we readers want that to be the case too). Alongside this here is a story exploring what Witch and also Woman could mean at the time and the concepts are not straightforward and change continually.  Now She Is Witch is a powerful and compelling tale I hugely enjoyed and got easily swept up into and I strongly recommend that you pick this up!