The Year of the Witching is a dark, feminist fantasy debut that imagines a different kind of ending for those persecuted for their differences.
Bethel is, in many ways, reminiscent of 1600s New England: rife with a puritanical religious fervor, dominated by power-hungry men and full of myths of witches and dark magic. Except the witches in Bethel's history are very real, and their blood runs deep in the veins of Immanuelle, the orphaned daughter of a madwoman and her heathen lover, burned in a pyre to purge his soul--and the community of Bethel--of evil. That magic is called up by Immanuelle's accidental foray into the forbidden Darkwood that borders Bethel. The young woman is at first terrified, then repentant and, then, as she comes to understand more and more of Bethel's history, furious. Her anger erupts over what her parents were put through, the corruption simmering just below the surface of all of Bethel's neat and orderly rules, the burden placed on the shoulders of women and girls for centuries in the name of purity and divinity.
This transition, from penance to fury, drives the heart of The Year of the Witching, as Alexis Henderson deftly turns the tropes of historical witch hunts on their heads. Though the worldbuilding here is a bit uneven at first, once established, The Year of the Witching proves a compelling and haunting story of magic and power, and what it looks like when one girl finds both within herself. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm