Synopsis:
In this sumptuous, atmospheric historical fantasy set in post-World War One Appalachia, three outcasts with misunderstood magical gifts search for their place in the world while battling the dark forces that circle their community.
Kate Mayer has always been troubled by visions of the future. No matter what she does, her disturbing premonitions come to pass—often with terrible consequences. But Kate has a secret: swirling, romantic dreams of a strange boy, and a chance meeting in the woods.
Oliver Chadwick Jr. returned from the Great War disabled, disillusioned, and able to see the dead. Haunted by the death of his best friend, Oliver realizes that his ability to communicate with spirits may offer the chance of closure he desperately seeks.
Nora Jo Barker’s mother and grandmother were witches, but she has never nurtured her own power. Always an outsider, she has made a place for herself as the town’s schoolteacher, clinging to the independence the job affords her. When her unorthodox ideas lead to her dismissal, salvation comes in the form of a witch from the mountains, who offers her a magical apprenticeship. Yet as she begins to fall for another woman in town, her loyalties pull her in disparate directions.
Rumors of a dark force stalking the town only push Kate, Oliver, and Nora Jo onwards in their quest to determine their own destinies. But there are powers in the world stronger and stranger than their own, and not all magic is used for good…
Review:
Hello again dear reader or listener, I need you to picture the terrified child holding a cross meme and, instead of the cross, to picture a box of antihistamines, and that is me currently with everything blooming all around me. I love spring, I do. My hay fever however, oh she chuckles maniacally. Why should you care about all this? No reason whatsoever!
With thanks to the team at Titan for offering an eARC of Nicole Jarvis’ latest book, let’s get to my honest thoughts that are actually relevant, shall we?
I was fresh off watching Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (and Loving it – seriously go watch that movie it is incredible) when this book came to my attention and to say the timing was excellent is an understatement. Supernatural happenings in a 1920s southern American town? Gimme. Also, having read Jarvis’ debut The Lights of Prague and greatly enjoying it, I knew this was an author I wanted to read more from. The final decider in me picking this up was the byline “For fans of Katherine Arden”, which I am, most ardently.
I’ll see myself out. Blame the Zirtec.
With Jarvis’ story set right after the first World War, I could see the connection to Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts, a book I deeply loved and still think about. As well as for the ghostly happenings of course. But that’s not all A Spell for Change was!
Told through three POVs that I liked each for the own merits, Jarvis navigates the fraught lives of three individuals who are about to learn how far they are willing to go to fight against the injustices of their society. For truly if you were disabled, a woman, Black, or queer, in Tennessee of the ‘20s you were definitely not having a roarin’ time. Jarvis does not shy away from showing the realities of racism, classism, and overall lack of rights for anyone that wasn’t an abled white man. But she does so in ways that are so deceptively simple and to the point, and yet to visceral and evocative that you can’t help but feel everything the characters do, or at the very least easily relate to them in one way or another. The helplessness of it all truly hits hard. The author takes her time to build up tensions and foreshadow what is to come so well that you always find yourself intrigued and needing to know more but also unable to shake off a sense of wrongness that permeates everything.
Jarvis also renders ambience so well, from the deceptive warmth but not quite of Spring, to the stifling summer heat, or the chill that offers relief from it but also brings goosebumps on your skin typical of deep caves. Moreover, she presents us with more horror elements than I was expecting, which was a delightful and welcome surprise. They created the right juxtapositions to all the soft and tender moments that really make you care for the characters and their budding – yet forbidden – relationships. By weaving the natural beauty of the land into the lives of the protagonists, while also underscoring it with the horrific echoes of the past she rendered a deeply layered canvas of a story that resonates with the modern reader. Even her tackling of PTSD, and how it was viewed/understood at the time, was done very well, which is something I always keep an eye on.
Although the first half of the book is fairly slow going, which in my opinion was not a bad thing as it was not a slog, the second half ramps up onto an action-packed final act that shifts several gears and delivers more than one gut punch, but also offers super satisfying resolutions that I was glad to see. In fact, Jarvis does such a good job of building it all up, enriching it with folklore and stories passed down through generations, and thus making you care for all the things that are at stake if the protagonists don’t succeed at getting to the bottom of the mysteries even more. And yet that sense of wrongness, of something coming to ruin everything they have fought so hard for, would not leave me. I was ready to get hurt, dear reader. And I kinda was, not gonna lie to you, but it all made so much sense for the story and where each character was with their life that I was not even mad about it in the end. Did I want to shake the characters a bit from time to time? Sure. But that to me is a sign of good writing because I was invested rather than indifferent and just waiting to see where the story would go!
A Spell for Change is everything you want in a leisurely weekend read: it is a heartfelt, intriguing, and at times eerie tale of defiant people trying to carve out space for themselves to peacefully exist true to themselves, in a world that tries to tell them they have no right to. It presents us with food for thought while also granting escapism, wonder, and supernatural phenomena that I will not spoil the exact nature of. Ultimately it is a story about love, both familial and romantic, that pushes us to be better and fight for more.
The book comes out tomorrow May 6th through Titan Books and if anything I mentioned has you curious, dear reader, I suggest you run to grab a copy!
Until next time,
Eleni A.E.
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