The Grand Mistress of Britain’s witches has decided that they will join the war effort, after centuries of hiding to avoid mobs and inquisitions. As much as her apprentice, Lydia Polk, loves fighting back against the Third Reich and their small coven, not everyone is on board. Morgan Ryan’s entertaining new novel, A Resistance of Witches, takes us into Lydia’s most challenging and dangerous fight yet.
Lydia’s witchy abilities make her a valuable asset in her Grand Mistress’s arsenal; she can undetectably project herself hundreds of miles away from her body. She can hear all kinds of secrets and, most importantly for the witches of Britain, track down magical artifacts and books that cannot fall into Nazi hands. The Nazis are deadly enough as it is. Once Lydia finds something, a witch with the ability to travel in person retrieves it. That’s how things usually go, until one terrible night when an imposter turns up in the place of the British Traveler and kills the Grand Mistress. The book the British witches were supposed to find goes missing.
All of that happens in just a couple of chapters into A Resistance of Witches, and the pace never lets up. Even as Lydia tries to shake off her grief at her mentor’s murder, she dives back into the fight. The book that could destroy everyone has to be destroyed or at least taken somewhere where the Nazis can’t get it. Thankfully, Lydia isn’t alone. Rebecca Gange, a fierce French resistance fighter, and Henry Boudreaux, a Black American curator in France, join the fight once Lydia pulls them into her secret, magical war.
In addition to the rip-roaring plotting, I very much appreciated Ryan’s originality and character work. The witches in this world do more than create potions or hex people (though there is plenty of both). There are also other magics out there that even the dedicated Lydia doesn’t know about. With the glut of witchy books coming out, it’s refreshing to see someone doing something different. This book also has excellent character development, especially for Lydia, as Ryan is not afraid to run her characters through the wringer. Lydia, Rebecca, and Henry are tested with their greatest fears, betrayals, and death throughout the book.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.