Under Her Spell by Bridget Essex

Under Her Spell by Elora Bishop

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A series of three short stories previously published (both previously published separately and previously published gathered together). I did not read the previous versions put out under a different author name so I do not know if there were any changes (possibly just a tiny bit to connect it to the author's knight series - by the inclusion of the city in that series as a 'mentioned' city in this collection of stories, though it was not visited in this book).

Okay, so - a witch who is actually quite bad, sorry 'mediocre', keeps getting chased out of towns that wish to burn her tied to a stake. She's the kind of witch who rides a broom and has a cat as a familiar (a talking cat in this case), though she isn't the kind of witch who looks like the stereotypical 'old hag' type of witch. Oh! And witches aren't in hiding here - towns employ witches, they just also have a tendency to form mobs and burn them if they are not that good at being witches . . . witches. This witch is the main character and point of view.

The first story finds her being chased from one town, visiting a bar, picking up a new job in a small town 'in the middle of nowhere' named Benevolence which also just so happens to be inhabited entirely (but for the witch) by shifters (or, as used in these stories, 'Changers'). Many different types of changers here - turtles, various birds (robins, etc.), goats, deer, ox, cat, etc. You can tell what kind of 'changer' they are by their last name (though the main character, the witch, is named Isabella Fox but is not some kind of werefox - she's human). The first story sees Isabella (and her familiar, the talking cat named Alice) move into town, meet people, then spot the one town outcast - Emily Deer (an all white deer).

Second story sees Isabella and (view spoiler)[Emily (hide spoiler)] as a couple and visiting some temple place for some ritual stuff. And visiting some ghosts.

Third story sees the coming of Spring (finally). And the rituals and stuff that have to be observed. These stories are full of rituals. While it is 'the coming of spring', the vast majority of the story is spent in a winter wonderland (heck, the story opens with Isabella falling through ice into a lake and needing to be rescued).

An interesting set of stories. I felt somewhat oddly distanced from the stories, not sure what that was about, but still an interesting set of stories.

Rating: 3.50 (this is more of an 'overall' rating, though I didn't get around to rating each individual story - mostly because they were all so short and read so quickly).

May 5 2017



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