A Sorceress Comes to Call Is Whimsical, Subversive Fantasy Perfection
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I am once again here to tell everyone that it’s very likely T. Kingfisher is the best fantasy writer you’re not reading. The pen name of children’s author Ursula Vernon, Kingfisher’s books mix a deliciously old-school fantasy feel with a decidedly modern sensibility. Her stories are simultaneously bittersweet and beautiful, blending humor, heart, and no small amount of horror to create a tale that somehow feels both refreshingly new and like something that has always existed. Such is the case with her latest novel, A Sorceress Comes to Call, a seemingly traditional tale of evil mothers and oppressed daughters that still has plenty of modern things to say about topics ranging from emotional abuse and anxiety to misogyny and the ways women are told they must exist in the world. It feels positively timeless in all the best possible ways, a feat which is admittedly no small act of magic in and of itself.
As a writer, Kingfisher has a unique gift for embracing the best versions of classic tropes and themes from fairytales, folklore, and legends even as she uses them to subvert and expand the idea of what fantasies can be and do. In A Sorceress Comes to Call, women take center stage, direct the story’s action, and play the parts traditionally given to men. Middle-aged female characters are vital and complex, allowed to claim happily ever afters on their own terms. Even the tale’s central villainess is given a refreshing amount of agency, allowed to be greedy and cruel without apology, chasing her own happiness for no reason other than she simply desires it. Male characters generally serve as love interests and sidekicks, spending most of these pages reacting to things in the ways that women are often forced to do. (Kingfisher’s men are also remarkably multifaceted and emotionally vulnerable in ways this genre is often loath to allow. It’s lovely.)
The story follows Cordelia, a fourteen-year-old girl whose mother is a sorceress. And not friendly the fairy godmother kind. No, Evangeline is the sort of enchantress who likes to compel others to do her bidding, often forcing her daughter into complete, docile obedience whenever she does anything that annoys her. Their house has no doors, and Cordelia is allowed little privacy and fewer dreams of her own, frequently left isolated with no company beyond Falada, her mother’s beautiful, but deeply creepy horse.
Determined to entrap a rich man into marriage, Evangeline concocts a scheme to stay at the house of a wealthy squire and his spinster sister, dragging her daughter along with her. But Lady Hester, who feels an awful presentiment of doom about Evangeline, is immediately suspicious of her motives and works to thwart the woman’s obvious designs on her brother, Samuel. But only Cordelia knows the full, potentially murderous extent of her mother’s powers, and lives in terror of what she might do if her plans are threatened or her true identity is discovered. Will she be able to find the strength to try and fight back against a woman who has spent all her life controlling and abusing her?