Emilia Hart’s Weyward is an interesting story about witches, and despite the bad reputation that witches have, I think it would be cool to be a witch with actual magical powers. Weyward is also a predictable story, but then again, the trauma that men inflict upon women is predictable. The novel shows how three generations of women from the same family overcome this trauma and thrive.

In 2019, a young woman named Kate flees from her abusive, controlling husband to Weyward Cottage, an inheritance from her great-aunt that she has managed to keep secret from him. Weyward Cottage is tiny and in disrepair, with an overgrown garden. As Kate begins to clean up the cottage and sort through her great-aunt’s belongings, she uncovers a family secret linked to the witch trials of the seventeenth century.

In 1619, Altha Weyward is on trial for using witchcraft to murder a local farmer, the husband of her former best friend. Altha’s magic is rooted in the natural world, and she uses her magical abilities to heal others, but will her accuser, the father of her former best friend who blames Altha and her mother for the death of his wife, be able to convince the jury that she uses her magic for more sinister purposes?

In 1942, a sixteen-year-old girl named Violet is trapped by her controlling father, and by societal convention, at her family’s estate. Violet has an affinity with nature, in particular with insects, and longs to have the same education that her younger brother receives. When her father invites an older male cousin to visit, Violet finds herself spellbound by his predatory gaze, and learns the hard way what really happened to her mother, who died when Violet’s brother was just a baby, leaving behind a locket inscribed with the initial “W”.

Each of these female characters is well developed and easy to feel empathy for, but Kate’s situation in particular paints a chilling and tense picture of how a toxic man is able to use his charisma to manipulate a young, naïve woman into giving up her family, her friends, her freedom for him, trapping her financially in a violent relationship that not every woman is able to extricate herself from.

Weyward is not a story about witches getting revenge on men, although, the women in this novel have all the reasons in the world to get revenge. Instead, it is a story about women recognizing the abusive men in their lives and finding the strength to break free of them. Perhaps the Weyward women have a bit of help from magic, but honestly, women could use a bit of magical help against abuse. There are too many stories in the news about abusive men murdering their female partners who tried to escape from them. At least in a story like Weyward, abused women succeed and have a chance to live happily ever after.