Alexis Henderson

Immanuelle Moore is an outcast in her home of Bethel because her mother broke the society’s rigid rules and fell in love with an outsider of another race. Because of this, Immanuelle tries to fit in as much as possible and worship the father properly. When she finds herself going into the forbidden Darkwood, she is met with the spirits of four powerful witches who were killed by the very first profit of Bethel. They give Immanuelle her mother’s diary, and she begins to understand some terrifying truths about the world she lives in.

Even though The Year of the Witching is set in a fictional universe, the allusions to our own past and present are very clear. The town of Bethel brings to mind early Puritanical societies where women were seen as inferior, and everything revolves around the church. Even several names were biblical; Immanuelle, Leah, And Ezra, to name a few. Intersectionality also plays a big role. Immanuelle, being a woman, is seen as inferior in Bethel, a place where men have all the power and can have multiple wives who are often much younger than them. She’s also biracial, which adds to her feelings of not belonging anywhere.

The only critique I have is with the witches. I wanted to know more about them, and I was disappointed by how little time was spent with them and the direction their story went. Despite that, I loved this book.

Henderson blends supernatural themes with the fears women and people of color deal with all the time. Her description of the witches is incredible and terrifying, and yet the book gave me the same kind of vibes that the movie The VVitch did. It has a very foreboding feeling to it. The Year of the Witching is an excellent comment on religious hypocrisy, patriarchy, and racism, but it’s also a frightening dark fantasy with witches, blood, and ghosts.… (mere)

Although I thoroughly enjoyed Henderson's debut novel, "The Year of the Witching", this new book just totally missed the mark for me. Despite an intriguing premise, "House of Hunger" is bogged down by a slow beginning and characters who are simply not given enough time to develop properly or be fleshed out. Even the main characters are barely given more than a couple personality traits to distinguish them, let alone the main relationship between Marion and Lisavet; it goes from 0 - 100% in a mere matter of pages with hardly any real interactions between them. There is absolutely NO buildup in their relationship so everything between them felt unearned and dry. I felt like up until around page 220 (of this 288 page book) I was just rereading the same thing over and over again but with different synonyms thrown in.… (mere)

Holy cow, this book was riveting.
A sapphic retelling of the legend of Elizabeth Bathory with a nod to Dracula and his brides as well.

While some of the concepts like "blood fuel" and "blood wine" confused me in terms of how they would chemically work, I think they were meant to be more of a metaphorical concept of how industry and empire run on the exploitation of life.

The descriptions of the food, architecture, and Dionysian delights were scrumptious and provided an interesting foil to the more ghastly and disturbing details, much like the dank and moldy labyrinth underneath Lisabet's estate. The pacing was good and didn't feel too long or too short. I can't remember the last book that was so effortlessly enjoyable for me to read as this one, I practically devoured it in only a few days! I appreciated the diverse perspectives and think the character development was great as well.

I just wish I knew what happened to the girls at the end of the book after they board that night train. Do they succeed at toppling the horrifying blood maid and blood-based nobility system or at least manage to find some happiness, healing, and safety on their own? Since this book is a horror story, I would like to think the reason it ended so abruptly is that the horrors ended for them after that night.… (mere)