It tells three stories, of three women in different timelines - 1619, 1942, 2019. I can sometimes be hard to keep track of multiple tales, but I found this book easy to follow and thoroughly enjoyed learning about the lives of these women. Overall I highly recommend this book.

Buying books and reading books are two separate hobbies. I am also fully a ‘judge a book by its cover’ human. So when this beauty was dangled in front of me I had to have it. Now tell me why it’s been sat unread on my shelves for 6 months? 😂 honestly I make books seem so much bigger in my head and then adore them. A great supernatural spooky read which is rich in female empowerment. I devoured this! The way Emilia Hart finishes each chapter so you’re excited for the next but also have to wait to get to the next characters is so well balanced and an incredible feat.

A beautifully atmospheric read. Weyward follows the lives of three women in history and their connection to each other and nature.

I found myself fully emerged in each character and really invested in their stories not only as individuals but also how they wove together.

A wonderful story of the strength and resilience of women, highly recommend!

It is an utterly enthralling and thrilling story. One of my favourite reads of 2023.

Following the story of three women in different time periods, it is a great mix of family saga, historical fiction, and domestic thriller.

Can't wait to see what Emelia writes next.

As someone not 100% into anything fantastical this book HIT DIFFERENT! It's witchy, gothic perfection. It's an eerie plot in an equally as eerie setting spanning hundreds of years.

This isn’t my normal kind of genre book, but I’m glad I gave it a read. I’m not usually someone who can get into historical fiction, it took me 2 months to get through the Philippa Gregory book about Henry the Eighth’s wives.

I think I viewed it more as three separate stories in one, rather than being one seamless story that wove together? Paranormal themes aren’t really my cup of tea and I wasn’t expecting the triggering nature of rape and domestic violence that featured - that’s totally a me thing though, it just wasn’t something I’d factored in to be looking out for!

Content warnings include abortion, domestic abuse, mental health, miscarriage, physical abuse of an animal, racial slur, sexual assault, stillbirth and suicidal ideation. Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with some scenes.

This feminist tale connects three women across five centuries as they struggle against a patriarchal society determined to strip them of their power. Altha, 1619, is a village wise woman accused of witchcraft. Violet, 1942, is the sheltered daughter of an aristocrat who finds her ambitions, interests, and hopes disparaged or ignored at every turn. Kate, 2019, flees an abusive relationship and returns to her family home in Cumbria. These three women have a deep connection to the natural world, to the point of being supernatural. There is an element of magic but it's almost secondary to the women's journeys. It's a book with an element of magic rather than being a book focused on magic.

The chapters alternate between all three characters and I was equally invested in each story, which often isn't the case in multiple POV books. The stories are also intertwined with threads woven across the generations. It's fiercely feminist but it's not a misandrist story. Graham, in particular, is a rounded character who supports his sister and uplifts her. But it's the women and their relationships with other women that shine brightly.

The writing style is engaging and immediate. It kept me turning the pages as I needed to know how their stories progressed. Riveting and unforgettable.

Wow. Just wow.

Weyward is the feminist story of three generations of women who all have a link with magic and the stigma that being a woman with power can bring.

Each of our three protagonists has a battle to fight and are at the mercy of those around them. However their resilience and strength is palpable and jumps off the page.

As a reader, I became lost into this story and immersed in this world and I really didn't want it to end. It could be said that stories of witchcraft have been done to death but oh my this book does not disappoint. Emelia Hart is a writer I will keeping an eye on.

Weyward by Emelia Hart is available now.

For more information regarding Emelia Hart (@EmeliaHartBooks) please visit her Twitter page.

For more information regarding Harper Collins (@HarperCollins) please visit www.harpercollins.com.

Three different Weyward women from the 15th Century, the 20th and the 21st century have remarkably similar lives and outcomes.
Altha is a healer, like her mother before her. Attuned with nature, she eventually uses her ‘powers’ to harm rather than heal (although we are meant to briefly suspend any morals as she uses them against an abusive man). She ends up (surprise, surprise!) being tried as a witch at Lancaster Assizes.
Violet is a young girl of 16 in the 1940s. Daughter of a woman who died and was supposedly insane. Again, Violet is attuned with nature and this terrifies her overbearing father that she is ‘uncanny’ like her mother. Rape features in Violet’s story. As does abandonment.
Kate is another victim of domestic abuse and rape. Pregnant, she escapes her partner in London to live in Weyward cottage in Cumbria.
The three women’s lives are intrinsically linked by their experiences with nature, and at the hands of men.

I thought the story ‘just okay’.
I felt like I’ve read something far too similar, many times before. I’m afraid that it was just too cliched, too obvious to really enjoy. It did keep my attention, but only half-heartedly as it just didn’t feel like anything new. Sorry.

A brilliant debut novel that had me hooked. I love any historical witchy read and this one didn’t disappoint

This felt a little trite and surface-level. Pretty much all the men were archetypal bad characters. I felt the witch trial section was very cliched in the sense that it has been covered many times before and in more interesting ways. And the modern section felt like something out of the 1950's!

This gripping thriller is a masterclass in tension, making each page a heart-pounding step further into the darkness of its secrets right until the last page!

I’ve had this book staring at me from my TBR shelf for quite a while now, so decided to finally read it. It was such a journeyyyyyyy!
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The story has multiple POVs which is normally not my favourite thing, but in this case it was helpful to have all these perspectives from different women, who even though were alive in different times one from the other, their story is kind of the same: an oppressed woman who needs to be strong to stand her ground.
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Loved this for a debut novel!

Really enjoyed this. 3 different perspectives. Audio was superb

5 stars

Would recommend to friends etc

Thank you for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book. I really enjoyed reading this book, and was gripped from the beginning

This stunning cover has been doing the rounds on the internet recently and the story within its pages sounded truly captivating, so I couldn’t wait to have the time to dive into it. I’m delighted to report that I couldn’t put it down.

In 1619, Altha is preparing to stand trial for the murder of a farmer and will have to fight the claims of witchcraft from everyone around her, if she is to be free again. In 1942, Violet is kept away from the world by her father and finds evidence that her mother didn’t die in the manner that she has always believed. In 2019, Kate is on the run from her violent partner and has nowhere else to go other than the house she inherited from her great aunt -Weyward Cottage.

There is the constant repeated motif of nature being fully on the Weyward women’s side throughout their lives. It’s perhaps strongest in Violet’s story, as she has a fascination and affinity with insects but Altha also has a unique bond with animals. The Weyward magic is so beautiful and powerful, intrinsically linked to the natural world, implying that just like nature, Weywards cannot easily be controlled.

However, as we’re following three female characters, the world (in all three time periods) constantly tries to control the Weyward women. There is a lot of commentary on the history of men’s attempts to control and subdue women and it makes for pretty bleak reading to see how it still manifests in Kate’s 2019 life. The control and abuse changes its shape each century but the principles and attitudes behind them remain constant.

Violet’s story was the one that had me completely hooked throughout. I was deeply invested in her getting some kind of peaceful ending after the horrific treatment that made up the bulk of her childhood and youth. She was so smart and interesting that it made my heart ache to think that she lived in a time where there were so little opportunities for women to flourish.

Kate’s love for escaping into fiction clearly spoke to me and I love the idea that the mind is untameable and that books enable it. I suppose the limitless size of the imagination and the countless places that books can take us make that wildness of the mind obvious but in the context of Weyward, a novel that is predominantly about the ways in which women are controlled and ‘tamed’ to fit criteria that men need them to fit, reading anything at all feels like a brilliant act of rebellion.

I also thought it was so clever how Hart managed to compare the obsession with hunting that men displayed in both Violet and Altha’s stories with Kate’s partner Simon’s corporate job. The light bulbs in my head shone so bright when I made the connection! Again, the book is showing us how things have changed without ever changing at all.

Weyward is a fantastically immersive, gripping story that celebrates women’s relentless victories in the face of patriarchal brutality. Women are (and have always been) treated with suspicion and cruelty but Weyward illustrates how powerful and dangerous they can be, if their magic is allowed to grow. It is a witch book with no witches but a whole lot of triumph and timeless revenge.

This was such a good book! At the beginning I was wishing for more of Altha's timeline, enjoying the witchy feel of her and her mother's story, but by the time the book was almost ending I was satisfied that each woman had been given adequate amounts of narrative to tell their side. This is very much a "good for her" book with each member of the Weyward women overcoming a terrible man or men in their life and righting wrongs, and yes this could be seen as cheesy in another story but in this I thought it was perfect. There was just the right amount of tension in their stories too, with Altha and the trial, Violet with Frederick and her father and Kate with her partner Simon. Perhaps this the story isn't anything new, perhaps abusive partners and their beaten counterparts fighting back and becoming stronger has been done to death, but adding an uncanny element inherited through the ages kept me interested and made for such a fresh voice in this kind of historical novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it and can't wait to see what Emilia Hart writes next

I loved this. The intertwining stories from the different characters and the immersive writing, made this a compelling and thoroughly enjoyable read. I’ve already recommended to others and I’m so glad I’ve read it. It was excellent.

Weyward is a compelling and gripping debut with a beautiful story about 3 generations of women, their resilience in adversity and their relationship with the natural world and all that is around them.

I’m not usually a fan of books told through different timelines, with the story flipping back and forth between characters within different times, simply because I usually get more invested in one and then end up resenting the other, or because I lose focus when trying to keep it all together in my mind. So for that reason, I was a little iffy before going into this book, however, the synopsis and the cover ultimately made me want to read it as I was in that kind of mood. I did go into it with a clear head, but I was obviously a little bit cautious because of the timeline facts.

I ended up really enjoying this book. Each of the three women and time periods were fleshed out nicely and to the point where I wasn’t getting confused or mixing them up, which considering are somewhat similar, showed how good a job the author did with these characters. I did enjoy reading from/about some of the characters more than the others, but they each had enough happening that I didn’t do my usual thing and skim or skip sections that weren’t holding my attention. The fact that I finished this book a few months ago and still have clear memories about what happened and my thoughts, shows how much it has stuck with me, even the parts I didn’t enjoy and believe me, I usually have the brain of a goldfish when it comes to remembering things, eg names etc.

It has made me realise that I shouldn’t be too close minded when it comes to reading books where certain things are out of my usual comfort or go to mode, especially when there are other parts that are screaming out to me. It’s definitely character driven, more than it is plot, with some good character development, which is again the opposite of what I usually like when it comes to reading. I have already recommended this book to a few people, more so those people I know would enjoy the theme and topics within this book.

This isn’t the best book I’ve read, but it is one that has made me open my eyes and be a lot more open minded when it comes to reading and what books to choose next.