Book Review: A Sorceress Comes To Call by T Kingfisher
About the book
Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms - there are no secrets in this house! Cordelia isn’t allowed to have a single friend.
The only time she feels truly free is on her daily rides with her mother’s beautiful white horse, Falada. But more than a few quirks set her mother apart. Other parents can’t force their? daughters to be silent and motionless - obedient - for hours or days on end.
Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.
After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester.
Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage. Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.
Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother. How the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. She knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.
Why we love it
I’ve a particular fondness for novels that find new and inventive ways to retell classic myths or fairytales, so when I realised that this book was loosely based on the Brothers Grimm tale of The Goose Girl, I was instantly intrigued. It should be said that the connection is pretty tenuous but I enjoyed this intriguing magical fantasy novel immensely nonetheless.
The book tells the story of Cordelia, a young girl forced into near-constant obedience by her mother Evangeline’s powerful magic and is set in a regency-style world with country estates, eccentric house guests, afternoon tea and gossiping maids. Think Downton Abbey but with sorcery and demons, where every polite social gathering carries an undercurrent of dread.
Evangeline is the very epitome of a evil fairytale sorceress, manipulative and controlling with no remorse or empathy for anyone who gets in her way, not even her daughter, as she tries to snare herself a wealthy husband.
T. Kingfisher perfectly captures the torment Cordelia endures day after day - her constant fear of provoking her mother, intertwined with the inevitable longing any child has for a parent’s love and a sense of loyalty that persists despite Evangeline's cruelty.
But the book isn’t just told through Cordelia’s eyes, it’s also told through the eyes of Hester, the sister of the wealthy Squire who Evangeline currently has her sights set on. Hester takes Cordelia under her wing and in doing so they both manage to find confidence in their own voice, hopes and dreams.
I loved Hester so much - she’s a great character and not enough fantasy novels have older women as heroines. Fiercely independent, she’s sharp, she’s witty and has a dodgy knee so this bookseller with a dodgy knee more than relates! (Though I would have liked her to be a little less self-critical of aging and to have had a little more self-belief - let’s not analyse that thought too much though).
If you like your fantasy reads to include an element of psychological horror, you’ll enjoy this. Unsettling in all the right ways, it's a compelling and atmospheric read, full of characters you’ll be immediately invested in. Impossible to put down and not to be missed!
