Well they are all teenagers but definitely not the ABC Family Sabrina type witches, more the Netflix PG-13 type Sabrinas. Sadly no wisecracking Salem the cat here either, though there is a big silent demon.
Zara Jones is desperately trying to find a way to bring her murdered sister back from the dead. Jude Wolf is a billionaire’s daughter suffering from a curse gone horribly wrong. Both girls urgently need a real witch to help them. Emer Byrne is a curse writer from a deceased family of witches who sells her services to women driven to give up parts of their souls to demons for power. The three girls are drawn together first in hopes that they can help each other, then as they realize a serial killer is making his way through Emer’s former clients.
I very much enjoyed Sutherland’s House of Hollow and so have been anxiously awaiting her next novel. She did not disappoint! While House of Hollow was a sort of monstrous fairy tale, The Invocations is a grotesque Charmed. The growing friendship between the three girls is lovely and each of their motivations easy to understand. This book is full of barely suppressed feminine rage mixed with a good dose of Sapphic teen angst.
For a card carrying wuss with a weak stomach like me, some of the body horror and gore descriptions throughout the book were right on the edge of too much. This is not a crystals and flowers version of witchcraft, for example poor Jude is literally rotting from the inside out. I still loved it though. Go for the blood and guts you wild little young adult novels I say!