Trigger warning for domestic violence and rape.
People have always looked at the Weyward women askance. It might be because of their independence. It might be because they have an affinity for creepy crawlies. Whatever the reason, the Weyward women have had to be very careful to keep their freedom from men who want to possess them…or burn them as witches. Weyward, by Emilia Hart, shows us the lives of three women from this curious family as, centuries apart, find themselves fighting for their lives.
The earliest Weyward woman we meet is Altha who, in the chilly winter of 1619, finds herself on trial for witchcraft. When her old friend’s husband dies an apparently unnatural death, she is snatched from her home in Crows Beck and taken to Lancaster Castle. While her trial progresses, she thinks back to her mother and their efforts to heal the injured, the sick, and the laboring—as well as to her friendship with the girl (later woman) who asks her for help dealing with an abusive husband. Three hundred years later, we find Violet Ayres, the daughter of a Weyward woman who made a bad marriage to a local lordling before dying in somewhat mysterious circumstances. Violet fears her father and his efforts to mold her into a perfect (and mostly silent) young lady. At the age of 16, her father decides to matchmake for her, with disastrous results.
Another eighty-odd years after Violet, we see Kate Ayres as she flees an abusive boyfriend to the possibly safe harbor of her great-aunt Violet’s cottage in Crows Beck. Most of Weyward is told from Kate’s perspective as she settles into Weyward House, investigates her family’s past, and tries to come to terms with how that terrible boyfriend manipulated and beat her into his idea of a perfect woman. Plus, there’s the fact that Kate is pregnant. Kate is perhaps the most damaged of the Weyward women we meet. Unlike her ancestor, Altha, Kate doesn’t know what abilities she can draw on and lacks the knowledge the family had gathered. She doesn’t even have the social status or money of her great-aunt. Thankfully, she finds a well of inner strength that kick-starts her healing.
There are few good men in Weyward. Readers should be prepared to encounter a lot of belligerent, arrogant, and misogynistic men here. And much of Violet and Kate’s stories cover what happens after being hurt by men, which can be very hard to read. If readers can stomach this, they’ll find three stories with a unique spin on witchiness and independence.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.