A sorceress able to take control of others’ bodies and force them into submission, Evangeline is an unpredictable and often cruel force of nature in her daughter Cordelia’s life. And when Evangeline’s latest “arrangement” with a gentleman falls apart, the pair moves to the house of Evangeline’s next target, a squire named Samuel with a large estate and a too-generous nature. The only obstacle is Hester, the squire’s spinster sister. Hester takes one look at Evangeline and knows that she’s up to no good—and that Cordelia is as much at her mother’s mercy as Hester’s own brother is. Cordelia and Hester must work alongside a cadre of Hester’s closest friends (including Richard, her former lover) to stop Evangeline’s dark plot and rescue Cordelia from a life under her mother’s thumb.
Inspired at least in part by author T. Kingfisher’s love of Regency romance novels, A Sorceress Comes to Call is a delightful combination of the alien-yet-still-familiar worlds of Jane Austen and Bridgerton and the shadowy terror of the unknown. That might seem like an odd combination, but telling a story that takes inspiration from such a well-known setting affords Kingfisher with ready-made world building, giving her flexibility to focus instead on her leading women and the evil that has come to ruin them.
Why T. Kingfisher brought horror to a Regency-esque high society.
To say the two heroines of A Sorceress Comes to Call are unlikely is an extreme understatement. Cordelia is too timid: Left without guidance (and encouraging banter) from Hester, she would likely have continued to cower in her mother’s shadow. Lively and curmudgeonly, the 51-year-old Hester would have been content with her lot in life, bum knee and all, without the threat of Evangeline’s presence. Neither is the image of the “final girl” we’re taught to expect. But through gut-clenching scenes of body horror and moments of heartwarming humor, Kingfisher shows that even the most unlikely of heroines can prevail against the darkness
