Inspired by the Brothers Grimm's "The Goose Girl," A Sorceress Comes to Call by Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher is a heart-wrenching story about two women fighting to hold their own space in a world determined to overshadow them. Fourteen-year-old Cordelia spends her days cooking, cleaning, and riding her horse, Falada. When other people look at Cordelia, they see an exceptional young lady but, as in most fairy tales, all is not as it seems. Cordelia's mother, Evangeline, has the ability to possess her--completely. Cordelia calls it "being made obedient," but she believes it is the normal plight of being a sorceress's daughter.
Elsewhere, Hester wakes with the sense that doom is creeping toward her doorstep. At 51, Hester is content to be a spinster and to live in her ancestral home with her brother, Squire Samuel Chatham. Her peaceful life is upended when Samuel brings home a beautiful woman with her timid teenage daughter in tow. As soon as Evangeline crosses their threshold, Hester knows her nightmare was an omen.
An unlikely friendship forms between Cordelia and Hester as they attempt to rescue Samuel (and themselves) from Evangeline's clutches. The third-person narration alternates between Cordelia and Hester with no clear delineation, but the characters' voices are so distinct that the transitions work seamlessly. The atmosphere teems with quietly sinister magic. Even in her darkest works, Kingfisher writes warmth and humor into her characters, and readers will find delightful sparks of comic relief sprinkled throughout this novel. Kingfisher has once again proven to be a master of melancholy low fantasy. --LeeAnna Callon, manager/bookseller/fishwife at Blue Cypress Books, New Orleans, La.