BINGO: “Green” — so much of the book is about the Weyward relationship t to nature, and while it’s more about animals than trees it still feels green to me
It’s a classic issue: if there’s magic, there needs to be flaws which prevent our characters from just MacGuffin-ing their way to a happy resolution. Call it the Kryptonite Conundrum, wherein Superman is required to have a rather odd, easily transported weakness lest he turn up at every fight, punchy punchy stare-y stare-y and everyone is dead and he’s fine.
I don’t quite understand the edges of the Weyward magic, and thus I don’t quite understand the main drive of this novel. And for how leisurely it is paced, there’s entirely too much plot squished into the epilogue–so much so that a lot of well earnt plot is diminished within the last few pages.
The book flips between three POVs in three distinct eras; Altha, an accused witch in 1619; Violet, a viscount’s daughter in WW2; and Kate, a woman fleeing an abusive husband in the modern day. They are linked together by virtue of being literally related, as well as a cottage that used to belong to Altha (maybe) which became Violet’s home then was bequeathed to Kate and becomes her sanctuary. Altha’s story, of resistance and terrible choices, galvanizes both Violet and Kate in their respectively terrible lives.
It’s a lonely sort of life for these Weyward women, and I did appreciate the conceit of an abuser to explain why Kate would be isolated from society and unable to ask for help–as rumors of witchcraft would just draw bored questions of “oh so you’re Wicca?” in London these days.
End of day, though, I think if the epilogue had been the main story, and Altha’s tale drastically cut, the story would have had more narrative tension.