A challenging and brutal read that takes some time to absorb and truly appreciate because of the depth of its message and the richness of the characters.
Hard hitting

Conjure Women is one of the most beautifully written, richly detailed and genuinely moving debut novels I’ve ever read.
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This incredible novel tells the story of three strong women living in pre-Civil War America: there’s the otherworldly wise Miss May Belle, her daughter/apprentice Rue and her friend (?), and the daughter of their white plantation-owning Master, Varina. While the women’s lives are marked apart by the colour of their skin and their socio-economic position in society, their lives are intertwined and the two girls are bound to each other for life.

The story is so beautifully written and Atakora skilfully draws the reader into the plot, relationships and era of the novel; the characters show their suffering and their strength as individuals, as women and as friends.

At times my heart ached for Rue; I celebrated her wins and felt the sting of her losses with her. Her character is written with depth and complexity which makes her feel like a friend by the end.

If you enjoy historical fiction, books that will move you and characters that stick with you, I really can’t recommend this book highly enough. I will be eagerly awaiting anything else Afia Akatora has to share with us in the future.

Thank you to Afia Atakora for creating and sharing Conjure Women, to 4thestatebooks and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this.

What a fascinating book. I found it full of information about slavery, healing and attitudes of both slaves and owners. Rue is the daughter of the healer who ministers to the slaves, she cam perform magic with her healing and her insight, Rue learns about healing and childbirth from an early age. The book goes back to before and after the slaves were freed and the difference the emancipation makes to them. There are descriptions of cruelty, lust and compassion all very well described. Secrets and betrayals are still coming to light at the end of the book..

An harsh and fascinating story that I loved.
The author is a good storyteller and I liked the style of writing and the character development.
This is one of those books that makes you reflect as it talks about very serious topics like slavery and freedom.
It was an excellent read and it's highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I received an ARC copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The narrative is a series of "life" stories in the era before and after the American Civil war. The Main character is a "conjuror" - someone with special skills or powers, magically maybe. The writing is, for the most part. very powerful and I was transported to the time and the struggles of these people. For a debut novel it has strengths that many authors take years to develop. It has almost exclusively 4 and 5 star ratings but for me it doesn't quite reach the 5 star rating. I felt it became so complex at the end with the alternating story line that I struggled to work out what was where and who was who. At the same time it is much more than the mediocre 3 star rating. I think it would benefit from a re read and I can see myself coming back to this in a few months.

This is an amazingly accomplished novel for a debut. The story is mainly set before and after the American Civil War and is told by a couple of the slaves on a plantation. It is interesting, compelling, moving and very well written. I loved Afia Atakora's use of language and her descriptions were excellent. If I could I would give it more than five stars. With thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review an e-ARC of this book.

Conjure Women is a vivid and immersive piece of historical fiction, set around the end of the American Civil War.

It's a challenge, when writing fiction about emotive issues like slavery, to strike the right balance between plot and theme. But Atakora gets it just right - impressively so, for a debut. Conjure Women features a fantastic cast of compelling characters, each with their own curious quirks and well-developed flaws, and an intriguingly complex storyline. There is so much nuance in each individual thread of her story that Atakora can explore some heavy issues without it ever feeling oversimplified or didactic.

The structure does get a little too over-complex towards the end, with some unnecessary tangents, but on the whole this is a brilliantly self-assured historical novel. One I'd definitely recommend if you're looking for an absorbing read.

The first of my holiday reads; I sat down to start this, planning to just read the first ten pages before I went off to do something else, and then I got sucked in and accidentally read half of the book. Oops.

I absolutely loved this book - the characters are so vividly drawn and the story so wide-reaching that I was gripped from the very start. Time skips between pre- and post-Civil War, and Miss Rue - one of the books "conjure women" - gives glimpses of her life through slavery, war, and freedom, until her stories and her mother's stories come together.

Other characters -- May Belle - Rue's mother; Bruh Abel - a passing preacher; Sarah - half sister to their white mistress, Varina; and Ma Doe - mother, teacher, nurse to everyone on the plantation -- revolve around Rue after the birth of a strange baby, Bean, whose pale and patterned skin contrast with his black eyes. As a strange illness (timely) sweeps through the community, they start to question whether they should still listen to the old ways of Rue's conjure, or if her magic is really a curse. As the extent of Rue's healing unfolds, the secrets and magic of Marse Charles' conjure women is caught up in the history of the South.

Instagram post at: https://www.instagram.com/p/B9jjx0NAeT7/

A challenging, but important book to read, so emotionally hard at times, but a book about slavery and freedom shouldn’t be easy to read, it should be uncomfortable reading and challenging. This is a beautifully written story and the writing helps make the subject matter more bearable, I think without such beautiful prose it would be too stark. The author has accomplished such a lot in this debut and I look forward to future work, as Afia is clearly going to be an author to watch.


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

An interesting read about slavery and freedom. Some parts were hard to read. There is rape and abuse in the story. This is a story about the strength of women and their determination.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Since reading Little Women, Conjure Women is the only other book I’ve read set around the American Civil War. It will come as a surprise that this is Afia Atakora’s debut novel given her ability to write so evocatively about historical fiction.

The story revolves around Rue, daughter of Miss May Belle who is a reputable ‘conjure woman’ and midwife. Both mother and daughter are enslaved on a plantation in the American South where they suffer terribly at the hands of their owner. Alternating between enslavement and emancipation with Rue being the central character, we learn about her relationship with the plantation owner’s daughter, Varina, her experiences growing from a young girl to a woman and the mysterious circumstances around a baby called Bean who continues to inexplicably draw Rue in.

Although I finished the book back in January, I needed some time to digest it; the story alternates between different timelines offering a new episode from Rue’s life. The reader is transported back and forth and only once you get to the end do you realise that each narrative in the timeline is a puzzle piece of a bigger picture that cleverly comes together in a climax that speeds towards a bittersweet end. The very last chapter, however, filled me with heartwarming relief. For this very reason, the pace of the story feels slow but definitely not mundane; there’s enough mystery and almost a mythical feel in each chapter to keep you hanging and curious to know what we’ll next learn about Rue’s life.

Afia Atakora’s expressive depiction of slavery to freedom in the era of the American Civil War is heartbreaking and incredibly raw. An immense amount of research has gone into writing earnestly about this painful period in history and yet, she is able to weave in a beautiful story of a mother-daughter relationship, of womanhood, of life on a plantation as a slave, of the harrowing awakening that women have always been up for sale by even those who claim to love and protect them regardless of their proximity to wealth and status, of the bitter realisation that came with abolition that freedom did not equate to equality and respect, and of its subsequent reality that the situation has only marginally improved yet still exists in its modern form today.

Undoubtedly, Conjure Women is a story of the strength, but also the vulnerabilities of women – this is especially evident in Miss May Belle’s struggle to come to terms with the fate of Rue’s father. It’s a book about the complex relationships that exist between women and the communities in which they reside and the resilience it takes to go against the tide. Ultimately, we learn that regardless of the situation, the mother-daughter relationship is enduring and Afia Atakora’s exemplary and vibrant storytelling teaches us that regardless of time, distance and circumstances, the bonds that tie us are inescapably everlasting.

I am still in two minds about this book so 3.5 stars. It took me ages to read as I found it quite slow and quite depressing at times. I also found the language hard as a lot of the dialogue is written reflecting the accent of black people in southern USA in the mid nineteenth century. The dialogue jumps between 1854/5 when black people were enslaved and 1867/8 when they were freed following the Confederate defeat in the American Civil War.

It wasn’t the best read for me but I can see how many will rate it more highly than I do as there was a lot of insight into how life was for newly freed slaves in those times and many insightful phrases describing their situation.

The ‘conjure’ of the title was not always clear to me whether it referred to genuine spiritual healing, trickery or use of herbs and potions administered to people for various reasons (not necessarily to heal). I expect this ambiguity was intended but it’s didn’t make this book my best as I’m not fond of books with supernatural subject matter.

As well as the ‘conjuring’ the book highlighted the complexities of life for newly freed slaves which wasn't always as good a situation as you might expect. Most were homeless and penniless when freed so survival depended on a certain amount of guile and luck.
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The main protagonist in the novel is Miss Rue who has taken on her mother’s profession of local midwife following her mother’s death. Rue’s mother, Miss May Belle, was also the local conjurer who people of all races came to when needing a problem solved. Miss Rue is trying to follow in her mother’s footsteps in the conjuring but isn’t confident that she possesses those ‘gifts’.

I spent a lot of the book wishing there was a plot as it felt like we were reading about the everyday life of Miss Rue and those around her in the aftermath of being freed. The last quarter of the book did grip me a little more as we found out many things about the main characters and lots of interpersonal relationships which were not clear until then. There was some violence at this point which I’d rather not have read. I’d naively thought that this book would be more about years after slavery so hadn’t expected that. Again, not to my personal liking, but I can see how this book will appeal to many. It felt like the dialogue was authentic and well researched by author Akia Atakora.

I think this would be a good book for a book group to have some interesting discussions over but the content (towards the end) is not for the feint hearted like myself!

With thanks to NetGalley and 4th Estate and William Collins for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora is set in the American South before and after the Civil War within a non-linear timeline. The book centers around the interconnected lives of three women across generations: an enslaved young healer named Rue, her mother Miss May Belle, and Varina, the white daughter of the brutal plantation owner. I got partway through this book and then could not put it down; there were several brilliant plot twists that threw me. This book will make you think. Highly recommend!

Thank you to Net Galley and the Publishers for sending me an early copy in exchange for a review.

This was a beautifully written book centred around an evil time - the Slave Trade, the American Civil War and the rise of the Klan in the aftermath.

Horrific things were written about in a very flowery way which almost made it bearable to read about. We follow Rue, a child born into slavery and her mother May Belle, the plantation’s conjure or healer woman.

I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone who liked Homegoing or The Underground Railroad.

Trigger warnings for: slavery, torture, physical abuse, rape, lynching, descriptions of horrific injuries and racism in the form of (among MANY other things) black face performers.

This novel is set right at the end of the Civil War, at the time of the abolition of slavery. It follows the lives of 3 different women, May Belle and her daughter Rue, who are claimed to be ‘healers’ and the daughter of their former white master, Varina.

It’s a very disturbing novel, with abuse and rape, which made it difficult to read. I also struggled a little bit with the juxtaposition between religion and the supernatural.

I can’t say that I enjoyed this book whilst reading it, as it was difficult subject matter, but it certainly stayed with me and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so there must have been something there! Weird, and almost wonderful!

As much as I wanted to love this novel, it just felt flat. While the more disturbing scenes did strike a chord, most of the time I felt uninterested in Rue. The juxtaposition between 'magic' and christianity wasn't all that compelling and Rue's conjuring never truly came across. The sections focused on her mother were far more interesting.
I hope other readers will be able to connect with this story more than I was.

This is my first Netgalley request and if they all grab me like this I may have to file a complaint. Really though, the mystery was there in the first few chapters and had me hooked straight away. 400+ pages flew by.

It is incredibly powerful with immersive world building. I could really feel the connections between the characters, particularly Rue and Bean.

A powerful, moving ad eye-opening book about the aftermath of slavery and the enduring strength of women. Highly recommended.

Thanks to 4th Estate and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book is really rather special. It is set in the Southern US and jumps backwards and forwards in time to before and after the Civil War. It's never explicitly stated where exactly the story is set, but it all largely takes place on a slave owning plantation.

The main character is Rue, a young woman who grew up on the plantation. Her mother May Belle was a 'conjure woman' who performed conjurings and also acted as a kind of midwife. The more supernatural elements of the story are rather nebulous and it's never really made clear as to whether or not May Belle did have some form of power or was it mainly a child's skewed recollection.

The novel explores Rue's experiences and her relationships with key characters in her life including her conflict with an enigmatic preacher, her mutually dependent friendship with the daughter of the plantation owner and the complicated relationship she has with her mother.

This book is rich, sometimes spooky and atmospheric and kept me hooked until the end. Antebellum is always tricky to write about, but the horrors and casual cruelties as seen through a child's eyes are handled sensitively without becoming mawkish.

As well as being thought provoking and affecting this book also just had a really good story and well developed, interesting characters. A really great read and I hope it gets the attention it deserves.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this book. I was really happy when I got approved for this book. Even though I didn’t really know much about it I was eager to get into as it is something different for me and I was not disappointed. The story jumps from past to present and I loved this aspect of the book and I found it very interesting and kept me reading on. I loved Rue as a character because she was strong willed and I love that in female characters. I would definitely recommend this book and gave this book 4.5 stars