The Year of the Witching

In this gorgeous feminist fantasy debut, a young lady living in a strict, puritanical society finds terrible powers inside herself.

The sheer presence of Immanuelle Moore is blasphemy in the realms of Bethel, where the word of the Prophet is law. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.

Nevertheless, an accident draws her into the forbidden Darkwood that encircles Bethel, the same area where the first prophet had hunted down and murdered four strong witches. There, their ghosts linger, and they give Immanuelle a gift: her mother's notebook. Immanuelle is surprised to hear that her mother once sought safety in the woods.

Immanuelle is fascinated by the mysteries contained in the journal, but she can't quite figure out how her mother might have been involved with the witches. But as she starts to uncover terrible secrets about the Church's past, she understands that the actual danger to Bethel is its own evil. And she begins to see that she has to change first if she wants Bethel to change.