The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland caught my eye with a very intriguing, darkly gorgeous cover. The premise, as it turned out, was just as interesting as the cover.
The Invocations is a witchy supernatural thriller and mystery about three teenage girls from very different backgrounds, whose desperate desires lead them to witchcraft. It’s a haunting story about violence, power, and the dynamics of womanhood. A dangerous feminist supernatural tale is among my favorite combination of things.
Jude Wolf is an exiled daughter of privilege, who made a deal for power that went wrong and left her with a horrible curse. She would do anything to reverse it.
Zara Jones lost her sister, leaving her all alone in a world that has already been so cruel to her. She used to be going places, a genius destined for greatness, but now her mind is set only on getting her sister back from the dead.
Emer Bryne is a wild young witch, raised in the woods by demons after her whole family was eliminated. She’s dedicated her life to helping women gain the power to conquer their fear.
A serial killer on the loose, on a mission to murder witches, brings these three seventeen-year-old girls from different worlds together to try to stop him. It’s a dangerous game that they might not be able to win.
Despite their pointedly different upbringings and backgrounds, these women share the same things that every woman has in common, fear, trauma, and a quest for power that the world won’t freely give them. They are strong girls that readers will be able to see themselves in, and despite their flaws and sometimes poor decisions, readers will have no problem rooting for this trio.
The villains in this story are truly insidious, and come from places you may or may not expect. The path to finding out who is behind these awful murders is fraught with unexpected discoveries for each of the women, and unveils a whole new set of problems at nearly every turn.
The author gives the reader information in minuscule bits and pieces, especially in the beginning, something which left me desperate for more at the end of every chapter.
The descriptions are clear and vicious, painting a world of demons and magic, but also a world that any woman will find familiar. The magic in this story is present immediately, and there is a high price to pay for it in this story.
Female empowerment, if you hadn’t already noticed, is a significant theme here, along with patriarchy, power, and female solidarity.
Even the devil does not trust men to honor a bargain, so it does not deal with them. It offers power only to women…Of course I have written invocations for trans women…Demons do not care about bodies. They only care about souls.
The very best of speculative fiction uses elements outside of reality as we understand it (e.g., witches, ghosts, demons, etc.) to tell us something important about society and the human condition. The Invocations accomplishes this beautifully, with incredible twists and a cathartic ending that makes for a truly satisfying read.
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