Review: A Sorceress Comes to Call

5/5 stars

A Sorceress Comes to Call, by T. Kingfisher (2024)

TW: Emotional/psychological abuse

I didn't realize when I read this that it is sort of a re-telling of a Grimm's tale called "The Goose Girl," which I'm not familiar with. But having read a bit about that story, I can pretty confidently say that this is a very loose interpretation, and that for all that the Brothers Grimm fairytales are dark and often disturbing, I think A Sorceress Comes to Call takes the creepy factor to another level.

Cordelia, 14 years old, lives with her tyrannical, controlling, sadistic mother, Evangeline. And when I say controlling - Evangeline is a sorceress and is able to literally control Cordelia's body. Cordelia calls this "obedience." Her only real friend is her horse, Falada, who she tells everything to, and her only escape from her nightmarish home-life is when she goes out riding. Cordelia knows there's something different about her mother, but only really starts to get a sense of how different when she meets another young girl out riding, and starts asking questions about her life. When Cordelia finally musters up the courage to run away on Falada's back, she learns that her supposed best friend is actually entirely in cahoots with her mother - Falada is Evangeline's familiar, and tells her everything. What's more, Evangeline has decided she needs to locate a new "benefactor" - i.e., a rich man she can manipulate - so the budding friendship with the neighbor girl is also over.

They relocate to a new town and soon after begin living with a wealthy, clueless squire and his spinster sister, Hester. Evangeline commences with her plan to get her hooks into the squire, and Cordelia is left mostly to her own devices, making friends with the rest of the manor's inhabitants and visitors. This includes Lady Hester, the servants, and Hester's quirky trio of friends - wily card-shark, Lady Imogene Strauss, devil-may-care bohemian, Lady Penelope Green, and Hester's charming some-time lover, Lord Richard Evermore. They're all delightfully wacky and sweet, and I want to be friends with them. They all begin to suspect there is something quite rotten about Evangeline, and, with Cordelia's help, they band together to find a way to stop her.

Kingfisher is so adept at steadily building suspense, upping the stakes over and over to create a maelstrom of tension and fear and just overall creepiness. BUT, there's also a lot of humor in this book - e.g. a flock of attack geese who come to the aid of our heroes multiple times. The story-telling is immersive, the characters compelling. And if anything exists that could be called a light-hearted horror story, I think this is it.

---

UP NEXT: The Blue Hour, by Paula Hawkins