Title: A Witch in Time by Constance Sayers
Details: Copyright 2020, Hachette Book Group
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "SOME LOVE AFFAIRS LAST LIFETIMES.
In 1895, sixteen-year-old Juliet begins a passionate, doomed romance with a married artist.
In 1932, aspiring actress Nora escapes New York for the bright lights of Hollywood and a new chance at love.
In 1970, Californian musician Sandra's secret love affair threatens to tear her band apart.
And in 2012, Helen is starting to have vivid dreams about ill-fated love and lives cut short.
Bound to her lover in 1895 and trapped by his side ever since, Helen has lived through multiple lifetimes, under different names, never escaping her tragic endings. Only this time, she might finally have the power to break the cycle..."
Why I Wanted to Read It: It's been a big year for Witch books! Both books about real Witches but also the fantasy kind. Having now read more current (written in the past five years) Witch books than I have in a long time, I wondered what else written recently I might have missed. In that, I found quite a bit of fiction. Fiction can of course be hit or miss, but so can any book, and it was a book of fiction that helped send me "officially" down the Pagan path (In the Land of Winter by Richard Grant, a massively underrated book) many years ago.
With that in mind, I requested a bunch of books of "witch fiction" (is the witchcraft the fantasy or the real kind? We'll see!) so this is just one of many, all by different authors. The first book I read in this lot was the extremely disappointing A Secret History of Witches. The second was the amazing The Witches of New York.
How I Liked It: An old trope first: we've talked before about a story you enjoy, that's well done but that comes apart at the ending. But are you familiar with the reverse? What about when a story you're prepared to dislike and that gives you every reason to dislike it, suddenly grows on you and you're enjoying it? It'll happen!
But first, meet Helen Lambert. It's 2012 and she's a DC-based magazine editor in her mid-thirties fresh from a toxic divorce with a museum-curator husband who left her for another woman. A blind date with a guy named "Luke" who claims he's known her for over a hundred years is all it takes for her to start having almost narcoleptic-like vivid dreams of previous lives.
Meet Juliet LaCompte! It's 1895 and she's not quite sixteen in rural France, working on her family's small farm, but most importantly, since she was a younger girl, she's been posing as a model for painter Auguste Marchant, who's obviously considerably older than she is, if not old enough to be her father. I bring this up because Juliet has developed a crush on Marchant, largely what he represents, which is a glamorous life in Paris, rather than the life of a struggling farm girl due to be wed to a particularly awful neighbor boy whose family owns property (more on him later). Her mother, suspecting problems (and harboring some secrets of her own, more on that later, too), refuses to let her daughter sit with Marchant now, citing propriety, as Juliet is getting older. Marchant counters with an offer for Juliet to pose with her toddler brother, for twice the price, which the poor farm family can't refuse.
As you might have expected, this is indeed a ruse and Juliet's baby brother is handed off to his maid and she poses for Marchant alone, where she vents her troubles to the married, much-older artist (whose pregnant wife is in Paris) and he begins/continues to groom her (although it's not called that in the book, either in the 1890s nor in 2012). She has sex for the first time with him (the author puts pains to stress that Marchant gets her consent in a way that's anachronistic, sure, but in 2020 would've showed Juliet at least thought this was what she wanted) and then again and again. He sketches and paints her nude (yikes).
Juliet meets with the older boy she's supposed to marry and he's just about comically evil. She's terrified to marry him and no love spell her mother tries on her will change her mind. Marchant promises to take her to Paris.
Until it turns out the underage child he'd been grooming and with whom he'd had a totally inappropriate sexual relationship he's now dishonest with about his intentions! Her mother makes him admit it and pulls Juliet into a bizarre and impressively scary occult ritual that not only vacates the pregnancy Juliet didn't realize she was carrying, but costs her mother her life (and Marchant's wife and child die in childbirth).
Bereft of both Marchant and her mother, Juliet faces another brutality when the horrible neighbor boy discovers the nude paintings/sketches at Marchant's place in the country (they were supposed to be burned by his maid) and takes hideous, violent action along with a friend.
A letter arrives requesting Juliet's services as a maid to a noble man in Paris. Excited and hopeful to see Marchant again (and her mother's death wish was a command that a letter was to come and she was to follow its instructions), Juliet arrives only to find out it's far more grand than she thought, and the nobleman far more mysterious. "Lucien Varnier" is somehow connected to her mother, but she doesn't know how and he won't tell her, only assuring her that he'll pass her off as his niece. He acts as a sort of parent and mentor figure, setting her up with all sorts of lessons (turns out she's a whiz on the piano) and after a couple years, Juliet finally sees Marchant again, but he wants nothing to do with her, whimpering only that she was a muse and a mistake before going back to his latest young female companion. He later marries one of his students.
Juliet is heartbroken all over again, but carries on and rather unfortunately appears to be transferring her affection and attention to her mysterious benefactor, Lucian. Things get weird and finally Lucian disappears for a bit only to return with a wife, for it's revealed he's started to develop feelings for Juliet and can't act on them, for some mysterious reason (the obvious reason being he doesn't think of her that way because he's a parent figure, but that's not the reason). Tearfully, he goes to his marriage (although she's still living with him and posing as his niece, including to his new wife) and Juliet meets a tragic end.
In between these flashbacks/dreams, Helen puts it together and starts believing Luke's story. Luke is Lucian Varnier. Helen is Juliet. And Helen's now former husband? None other than Marchant, of course one of the artists her ex admires. But there's more.
Meet Nora Wheeler, formerly Norma Westerman, a chorus girl in the early 1930s who left her mother's boarding house in Ohio with the dreams of stardom in New York with a scumbag stage "fixer" named Clint, who promises Nora a life in Hollywood, but instead delivers physical and emotional abuse and threats of more violence. A theater director who presumably has put two and two together with Nora's talent and her occasional injuries, secures a screen test for her in Hollywood and she flees, changing her first name and taking her mother's last name. A standard Hollywood makeover ensues as does trying to find her niche in Hollywood where she encounters a talented director named Billy Rapp, who becomes a close friend. Finally Billy tells her he needs a wife and would she marry him? Not very romantic, but she's willing to give it a try. Except it turns out this marriage is a sham and a cover. Billy first tells her that he's impotent due to a childhood injury and she's hurt he didn't tell her before they married.
Adding insult and injury to insult and injury, Clint has come out west and become a "fixer" for Hollywood, and it's clear he's not done with her yet. Billy meanwhile encourages her to take a lover on the side and, unhappily, she does, but she also makes a friend in older, esteemed British actress Lillibet Denton who becomes a mentor. Returning home one night, she discovers her husband's real secret: he's in bed with another man (a leading star at their studio). Betrayed and hurt, Nora storms off after they exchange harsh words.
Later, Clint and the studio head find her to tell her that her husband is dead of a gunshot wound. It's suspicious and while it could possibly be suicide, they have to make sure she didn't kill him. She's utterly horrified, especially when Clint steps in as full time studio fixer and begins making new threats. He reveals he's the one who shot Billy. Nora gets an invitation to a surprise birthday party for her friend Lillibet in England and is glad to take it for an escape, and is greeted on the boat by a handsome man named Luke Warner, who Clint instinctively dislikes, but Nora leaves him behind once she's on the boat. Things get woozy, and when Nora wakes up, she's in Paris! Luke assures her this is for the best because she needs to hide out, especially from Clint.
Nora starts having some strange dreams about a past life in France and whoever "Juliet" is and Luke starts helping her put things together. Luke explains that she summoned him when she wished her husband dead in their last, heated argument before she left. Nora, you see, is stuck in a curse. Relieved for Luke and their closeness, they consummate their romance this time and both are happy. But World War II is breaking out, and France isn't safe. So it's time to go back to the States, to the comfort of anonymity (actress Nora Wheeler would be a famous disappearance, whose body has never been found). Nora and Luke set up on a ranch in New Mexico and fall into a happy life together. But a freak accident occurs and Nora meets a tragic end.
Meanwhile, Helen is marveling at all these Russian nesting dolls of lives and memories. She's also realizing some details of the curse, like the fact she appears to be picking up powers in lifetimes (Nora's friend Lillibet Denton spots her in Paris and is shocked to see her and Nora realizes that this could be trouble so she's able to make Lillibet forget they met, temporarily) and the fact she cannot ever live past the age her mother was when she cast the curse, thirty-four. This is especially troubling, since Helen is (you guessed it) closing in on her thirty-fourth birthday. With a friend, she sees a psychic, but is horrified to discover that the lifelines on her hand are... strange. The psychic, getting over her initial horror, recommends a more skilled practitioner that can deal with the curse. The man says a reversal is possible, but she needs some key ingredients that involve a trip to France (without Luke knowing). But those dreams keep coming!
Meet Sandra Keane! Last lifetime before Helen. It's 1969 and Sandra's band "No Exit" is trying to make a mark. Aside from Sandra, there's Hugh, a wealthy kid enjoying a rock-and-roll fantasy, who has a supportive sister with a very attractive photographer husband named Rick, Ezra, a drug-addict who Sandra saves from ODing, and Hugh's girlfriend Lily (the fourth member of the band). Sandra is serious, but Ezra's drug-using is causing problems and this Rick is very interested in photographing the band, especially Sandra. A romance happens and so does a car crash and Sandra magically saves Rick (the same way she magically saved Ezra from ODing) but promises that if he lives, she'll give him up. Unhappily, she does.
Fortunately, though, the band receives an offer at a show to record an album! You probably see where this is going by now. This really groovy guy named Luke Varner has a recording studio out in New Mexico and so the whole band heads there and has a wonderful time. But Luke has a reputation as a healer and people come to the ranch looking for help. She heals someone and Luke is "pleased but not surprised" and Sandra bombards him with questions, as she starts having dreams. Luke answers more openly now and Sandra gets a surprise letter from Rick. He's going to Vietnam as press, but when he comes home, he wants to be with her, despite their breakup.
Luke confirms that Marchant is Billy Rapp is Rick, but Sandra still doesn't want to believe it, but she knows it's true, as she now has Juliet's and Nora's memories. Luke kisses her, but it's different this life and though they consummate their relationship, they both know it's not the same. Luke gives more information about Juliet's life and lineage as well as her mother's history. The band head back to Los Angeles, but Sandra stays. A healing goes horribly wrong thanks to Luke's jealousy and sabotage and things escalate and Sandra reaches a tragic end.
Helen meanwhile, is able to control people's minds, a little bit, including that of her ex husband, when she drops back in to seize some crucial ritual ingredients from the Marchant installment of his museum. Having consulted with the second, curse-dealing-with occultist, she learns that in order to break free of the curse, she'll have to essentially "kill" Luke. She is horrified by this and without her telling him, Luke is aware and even encourages her. They have a tragic, bittersweet goodbye and he literally disappears.
Meanwhile, Helen makes peace with her ex, more or less, and realizes that he was just part of a larger pattern (of which she is now free), so to speak.
Finally, roughly a year later, Helen is on the beach and encounters a surfer and they strike up a chat. The surfer mentions wiping out last year and being in coma and waking up a different man. She marvels at his resemblance to Luke.
Got all of that? Whew!
I did what you're not supposed to do and judged a book by its cover. The idea of a "love story through the ages" had my eyes rolling and seeing the author of A Secret History of Witches positively blurb the back of the book had me feeling a certain way. I got a bit in with the blind date with Luke and my hopes were not high:
"Let me get this clear. I called you in 1895?" I placed my napkin on the table and eyed my jacket. Finally, I stood up. "Mr. Varner. I'm sorry. You must have me confused with someone else."
"Helen," he said with an authority that surprised me. "I'm really not good at this, but theatrics are childish. Sit down."
"Sit down?" I leaned in, placing my hands on the table. "You're a lunatic, Mr. Varner. I don't know you. I'm thirty-three years old, not a hundred. I've never met you in France--- or anywhere else for that matter. And my mother? She works for the National Institutes of Health. She did not... call you in 1895, I assure you."
"Helen." His voice quieted. "Sit down."
And for some reason I obeyed, lowering myself onto my chair, like a child. (pgs 4 and 5)
I understand fiction is not reality and exposition is a thing, but it's really hard to take to a character that doesn't act... I don't know, more realistically as to how someone being told they knew someone over a hundred years in the past would act. Not with the assumption you must humor someone who is having a delusional episode until you can get them help, but mild irritation and trying to reason with them. On top of that, Luke sounds like a first-class asshole for belittling her confusion as well as telling her what to do (and her doing it).
So I was assuming this book would be a mix of The Night the Lights Went Out and A Secret History of Witches and I was not thrilled with that concept. But I'm nothing if not committed to this project and also ripping the stuffings out of not-good books.
But my first clue that this book might not be a PG-13 romance-through-the-ages with a fluffy "witch" veneer was the fact that the main character (that would be Helen) swears realistically, which is something that even female authors still apparently hesitate about letting female characters do. I'm not saying that absolutely everyone swears, I'm saying a good percentage of the population does in this culture, in this time. You don't need to go the labored Martin Scorcese route and overcompensate, but a healthy medium goes a long way in believability.
Adding to my "this is not a fluffy 'witch' romance" is this, uh, interesting observation from Helen after she has her first memory dream.
I woke up satiated, like I'd had sex all night. Had that been a lucid dream? (pg 31)
I'm not entirely sure what that even is supposed to mean and it comes across a little male-authory (surely there are other forms of satiation other than sex all night, which would really be a sensation in and of itself, really), but it does firmly put the book in "probably not a fluffy romance" category.
Juliet's mother's ritual is creepy and genuinely horrifying enough to firmly shut the door on the notion of a fluffy romance, period.
Each time period is obviously a story in and of itself. Belle Époque France is a bit uneven, and there's not really a "love story" so much as an "obsession story" and it isn't even with just one person. Juliet is an unmoored teenage girl that was first groomed by a predator and when he discards her, she and her caregiver develop a sort of obsession with each other (that leads her to secretly follow him on his nightly excursions and witnesses him paying and having sex with a sex worker). Lucien's characterization is a bit all over the place. It's somewhat explainable, at least a little, since this is the first time he's meeting Juliet, and he's struggling with how to do this and act around her. But one minute he's nonchalantly ignoring her, the next a chiding school marm about her activities, the next in tears over how he feels about her.
There's a way you can write a book for English-speaking audiences and still have it clear the characters are speaking French. This is not the route, for the most part, that the author has taken. This happens both in the "modern day" of 2012 and in 1895:
"We'll have a bottle of the Château Haut-Brion," Luke said in perfect French to the waiter, who scribbled down the order before retreating. (pg 13)
"You asked how I knew about him-- about Marchant. It was through your mother."
"What is this thing with you and my mother?" (pg 134)
That last one is remarkable for both not sounding French whatsoever and also sounding gratingly modern. I've talked before about how sometimes a book has to have some anachronisms and they can work contextually, but this is not one of those times and it's so easily fixable.
Juliet as a character is pretty tough to evaluate since she's so pitiable. She's basically a victim of various predators and her sole acts of autonomy are mostly just trying to make the hurt lesser. Her characterization is less all over the place than Lucien's, but still a bit clunky. When Lucien shocks her with a wife, she goes from her legs trembling so badly they can hardly hold her, to turning the tables and faking him out for a kiss as he "nearly sobs" with apologies. Juliet's tides of emotion aren't handled much better by the description:
Knowing all the intimate things she did with Marchant, she almost vomited at the idea that next year she would be expected to marry this boy.(pgs 66 and 67)
The book picks up considerably all around with Nora's story. The dialog is all around more historically accurate, and devotees of old Hollywood (as I am) will recognize Nora's story as a pastiche of various real life old Hollywood tales, including but not limited to Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Thelma Todd, and Lana Turner. The pacing is better all around and Nora has far more agency all around than Juliet, even beyond their age difference and eras. Nora is still controlled by abuse, but her scrappiness and quick wit find her avenues out the way Juliet couldn't. By the time she meets Luke, he's a savior as he was for Juliet, but comes in way later. The closest thing to a love story is probably his relationship with Nora as they build a life together and Luke is honest with her for the first time.
Sandra's story is probably about a mix of quality between the two. It's not as strong as Nora's, but it's more structured than Juliet's. As an era, though, it feels far less authentic. It would've been interesting to explore the "Age of Aquarius" angle with Sandra, but the book doesn't go there. Luke/Lucien still has a flair for the unintentionally amusing melodramatic, though, as he laments that he and Sandra are "the Addams Family" in terms of normal (I'll allow it, given the popularity of the 1960s sitcom).
More than any one story, be it Juliet's, Nora's, Sandra's, or even Helen's, though, is the book's story as a whole. That's where its strength lies, and that's where its shortcomings almost fall away. The author's worldbuilding, if a bit clumsy and flawed, is still interesting, the reveals ambitious and impressive, and the overall story worthwhile. The dreams in dreams in dreams help reveal secrets and it's honestly one of the most impressive achievements of the book.
But, you might be wondering, is this book Witchcraft (real) or witchcraft (fantasy)? I can safely tell you despite the name, this book is barely witchcraft (fantasy). It's fantasy by means of a time-travel (of sorts) story. Without giving away too much of the plot's secrets, there's a ceremonial magician/occultist who performs in France in the 1890s who's pretty clearly a somehow even more theatrical Aleister Crowley figure. Aleister Crowley, I should add, was not a Witch. He was an occultist and a ceremonial magician. It turns out Juliet's mother's previous time in Paris was as one of his assistants. The magic Juliet's mother performs is taken from her time with this magician and the ritual she performs (and subsequently botches, sentencing her daughter to lifetimes of misery) is summoning a demon to do her will. A lesser demon attends to that demon's wishes. Juliet, who was forced into the ritual by her mother, is marked for lifetimes, and the magic she is able to perform in each subsequent lifetime, is connected to demons and therefore "dark".
It's also interesting that in one of the most contemporary books involving witches I've read, witches are entirely fantasy. No headstone campaign, no Pagan Pride days in DC (where Helen lives), no friend/dogcatcher/sister's mother's boyfriend's land-scaper that had a Wicca "stage", nothing.
Was all of this crazy? This secret trip to Paris to get blood? Witches and curses didn't happen in real life. (pg 233)
Nora pressed. "My mother, did she do this?"
He seemed resigned to something. "She was what you might call une sorciere mineure."
"A minor witch?"
"An amateur."
"As opposed to?"
"A REAL witch."
"There are such things?"
"You'd be surprised. He raised an eyebrow. (pg 265)
"All the fires?" Sandra asked. "What are they for?"
Luke was quiet. "They are supposed to ward off the darkness."
As the chimes began to ring from the church, she looked at him and he couldn't meet her eye.
They were the darkness. (pg 388)
While she now knew that her power came from a dark place, she convinced herself that she was using it for a good purpose. She was helping people with it. (pg 388)
As she moved through the long hall, she could smell the medicinal odor of sage and knew that a smudge stick was burning. Knowing that someone had likely purchased one to ward off evil spirits, she crept hesitantly. These superstitious things didn't work-- didn't ward off evil spirits or keep her out. She and Luke were as much the embodiment of evil spirits as anything she'd ever seen.(pg 395)
As though he had been practicing English, he formed the following words: "What kind of devil are you?" He raised his hand and aimed a shotgun at her.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sandra's voice rose.
[...]
Marie began arguing with the man.
"He says you play with people's lives. You are a witch."
Sandra was surprised he'd been so correct in his assumption.(pg 406)
The whole "witch" tie in was completely unnecessary down to the title, and what Juliet's mother did would, again, be better termed ceremonial magic. Being a "dark spirit" and consorting with curses and demons is the type of description of witchcraft that was popular decades ago (and also in Jack Chick tracts), but now we're supposed to know better. Witchcraft and witches as I said have a long literary history, generally as a metaphor for something else, and while I would've preferred the term "magician" be used instead of "witch", I somehow still found this less obnoxious than A Secret History of Witches, since this book seems to take the worldview that Witchcraft doesn't exist, rather than trying to make witchcraft look like Witchcraft.
But really, the "witch" angle isn't as troublesome as the "love story" angle.
This isn't a love story, and the closest it comes, that Helen in her incarnations develops a relationship (I wouldn't even call it "fondness" or "affection") with Luke, who's charged with looking after her throughout various lifetimes. We don't really see much of them bonding, or even a "we're in this together!" sentiment enough to sell their relationship (something that would inevitably be fixed should this get a screen adaptation).
Also, there's a curious bit of anachronism that is not slightly odd, it's revealing. When talking over with a magic-worker about the curse that has Helen, Luke, and her doomed man turning up in lifetime after lifetime, the magic-worker has an observation:
Whoever designed this curse gave you a guardian from the dark-- the administrator to protect you and the curse-- but that comes with..." He stopped. "Well, there are concessions that are made when those elements are added. Probably whoever made the curse worried about a minor, so they put an administrator in the mix for protection." (pg 151)
That's right, a demon in the 1890s sees a sixteen-year-old in a curse as a "minor"! Would it really have been so hard to say "Probably whoever made the curse worried about your being so young"? But I guess kudos on someone (even a demon?) pointing out that a sixteen-year-old that's been groomed isn't having a "love affair" with someone old enough to be their parent.
(QUICK NOTE: Lest there's any confusion, this is fiction. Yes, fiction affects reality, but not necessarily in the way we think.
No, I do not think this book is going to give anyone "ideas" that didn't already have horrible ideas in the first place. I'm objecting in this review to how this is portrayed through the lens of the time in which it was published and which I'm reviewing. While the narrative never calls the behavior between Marchant and Juliet "grooming", it pretty much fits the textbook definition.)
All that aside, the book also has a "needs a few more edits" feel throughout, not just the uneven but convenient characterization in places, but typos abound (I counted at least five).
Honestly, I'd rather have uneven characterization than a stereotype. Helen has a gay best friend who is just barely restrained from the Gay Best Friend stereotype:
"Um, Mickey? This is a jeans shop." I pointed at the window.
"She's upstairs, you nut. Plus, we can get you some Becky jeans when we're done. Those don't make your ass look fat. Not that it is! In fact, I was saying the other day to someone that divorce looks good on you."
"Not sure I agree. And who do you talk about me with?"
He shrugged, opened the door to Suite 202, and pointed for me to go ahead of him. As I walked up the wooden steps hearing the echo of my shoes on the wood, I realized that Mickey was checking out my ass and not in a good way. (pg 114)
Mickey went first, and Madame Rincky gave him a tarot reading mixed with a bit of palmistry. "I see a child in your future," she told him. "The large man with the dark eyes. You love him, eh? But it will not be without problems."
Mickey had wanted children, so this was in the zip code of accuracy. I don't think it was hard to deduce Mickey was gay, but the large man with the dark eyes was a pretty spot-on description of his current celebrity look-alike boyfriend. (pg 114)
I guess the fact the psychic and the magic-worker who later helps Helen with the curse are Jamaican but don't have their dialog but in butchered phonetics is worth something (although you could make something of the Magical Negro stereotype).
So the book is not without flaws, many of them. But it's also a compelling story and the worldbuilding is (mostly) well-done. Unlike Secret History, the author is able to take us into a character's world and time and really make it seem real. The connective tissue of the curse (and the remembering) anchors the story and is honestly beautifully laid out. It could possibly be the best part of the book.
So shoo off the "love story" nonsense and don't go looking for "witches", but instead enjoy some weird, semi-scary demon stuff and a kind of time-traveling! Most of all, enjoy a good reason to give a book a chance when it doesn't seem to deserve one. You'll be glad you did.
Notable: (Further) historical inaccuracy round-up!
This is nitpicky, but a band having the name "No Exit" sounds anachronistic in the late '60s/early '70s; the "No Exits" would've sounded more plausible (yes, singular band names did exist, but they were very rare). "No Exit" sounds like a forgotten height-of-Nirvana era grunge band, not what sounds like the Mamas and the Papas.
Juliet knew that her mother's night magic kept the family fed, especially during the winters, but there was a risk to it as well. There were places in Challans where her mother didn't shop. More than once Juliet heard the term la sorcière hurled at her mother as they walked past. Juliet didn't understand how herbs could be dangerous business in the country, but she'd heard of other sorcières who'd been accused of "murder" when spells had failed to help medical ailments, the accused sorcières were then dragged into the street and tied to a crude stake and burned.
Once Juliet even overheard her father telling her mother-- his voice feverish-- of a young witch forced to sit naked on hot coals until the townspeople were sure she wouldn't be able to "fornicate with the devil" again. (pg 26)
The era they're describing is the 1890s in rural France.
People. People people people. I promise you. THIS WAS NOT A THING. Honest! While someone might call someone a witch and be suspicious/frightened of them and/or try to socially ostracize them in this era, the widespread torturing and murder was centuries earlier. While extremely rare incidents did happen, they were usually one-offs (you know, murder) and not an execution by the state.
But okay, let's say the author wants to bend history a bit, couldn't there be some kind of lampshading about the fact "people think witchhunts are a relic of the past, but here in the country suspicion of witches still looms large"? Anything to point out that this isn't widespread. Juliet and her family are interacting with a Parisian who spends most of his time there and tells her about it, it's not like they have no concept of the fact there's an outside world.
In the author's note, she makes no mention of any kind of witchcraft, but does talk about her love of Belle Époque as an era, which would explain why this story begins there.
So much like Secret History, the author had a fave era and needed to put witch persecution in it. Which isn't bad on its own! There's a way you can do that! The Witches of New York is a textbook example of how to put a theme in an era where that theme was not widespread. You don't need to bend history so hard it snaps in order to fictionally explore something in a certain era. Just have some respect for history and the era in which you're writing.
Final Grade: B-
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