The Witchling's Girl

This book saw me pouring a pumpkin spice latte, slapped it out of my hand and said “No! This is how we do spooky season now!” And honestly?! Favourite book of the year.

Do you want to curl up with a cup of tea and fall into an entrancement of hauntingly, beautiful literature during fall? Yes? Thought so.

First of all- it took me by surprise as it was not advertised as LGBT+ but THIS BOOK IS QUEER AND I LOVE IT. My gay heart was over joyed.

1. Our main character, Haley- is Bi
2. Leah- is Asexual, and sapphic (I believe, but many interpret her character in different ways)
3. There’s also mention of a gay male couple early in the book though fleeting.

Now the book itself. I was gripped by the house’ talons and brought into the magical world of a witchling. The book has a medieval, fantasy style feel, with battling lords attempting to take one another’s land.

The story however mostly focuses on Haley, who at an extremely (not normally seen) young age, begins to display powers of resurrection; showing she is a witchling.

However the life of a witchling is one of only devotion to the cause and total impartiality, and punishable by death if you choose to deviate from your path. Haley is ripped from her mother’s grasp, taken into the house of the dead and looked down upon by a town who fears the dark and wonderful powers of its healers.

‘If I stayed stupid, if I did not study, then I would not learn how to carry the dead into the underworld’

The book follows Haley as she grows, starting from a young age and flowing through her life like a hauntingly, spiritual diary. It follows the elder witchling who raises her also,

It’s extremely hard hitting, emotional and has beautiful depth.

I know some people are looking for books to replace their usual Harry Potter reading with this year- and I would highly reccomended this tale of magic. An inclusive, haunting and hard hitting tale of magic.

Content warnings; brief mentions of rape, violence, abuse, bullying, being taken from family, abortion.

I would like to thank the publisher Hodder Books , for providing me with an ARC of this brilliant book.

This book was absolutely incredible. I just finished and I am an emotional wreck. The writing is stunning, lush and evocative without getting to bogged down in overly flowery prose but I think the true reason this book now has a place in my heart as one of my favourite books is it's focus on healing as well as discussions around death and having a good death. Books that have a large focus on medicine and the struggles that healers (/doctors) face will always mean a lot to me as I so deeply resonate with them.

In this book we follow Haley who has a young girl discovers she is a witchling, which basically means she has power to raise and guide the dead, as well as healing magic. She gets taken to the house of the dead, where she must now live with the current town witchling as an apprentice and can never see her family again. The house of the dead was very remiscient of the baba yaga/house with chicken legs aspect of russian/slavic folklore, with each town/village havinga house of the dead witha resisdent witchling who acts as the village healer, midwife and helps people who are dying and guides the dead to the underworld.

At first Haley is very angry and grieving the loss of her old life but she eventually comes round to becoming the apprentice to the older witchling, Marian who becomes almost a mother figure to Haley. We watch as Haley grows up and learns several life lessons, as well as getting to watch her learn the healing arts, which I just loved all the healing aspects of this book!! There was a scene where Haley is helping Marian for the first time at a birth and that scene was just so emotionally impactful (especially as a medical student myself!).

However life is not that simple and strange things as starting to occur in the land. People are starting to die of a strange disease where they get seizures, start speaking in strange languages and act rashly and unlike themsleves. Haley discovers this is atually happening because these people are being possesed by ghosts and keeps this a secret from Marian (and everyone else) which leads to a lot of emotional turmoil for her and some reckless decison making. Haley also is visited by a mysterious character called Leah, who we find out more about as the book goes on and Haley and Leah grow closer and their relationship is beautiful T_T it had me feeling all the feelings and the angst, mystery and chemistry was amazing!!

Watching Haley look back on her life (that is how the story is told) was such a joy, just to follow her life from a scared little girl, to a aprentice unsure of herself and her descions, to a powerful witchling keeping a lot of secrets and eventually to getting her own witchlings girl to raise.

The character interactions are some of the best aspects of this book, witchlings are not allowed to have a family/have babies/be in love but watching Haley make meaning connections with different people in the village, as well as her complicated relationship with Marian and her forbidden feelings for Leah created such dynamic and interesting character interactions.

The atmosphere of this book is so haunting yet weirdly comforting (I don't know if that is just me though and my love for medicine) but this book is perfect for autumn/winter and especially spooky season!!

And I have to mention it again but all the healing scenes in thsi book were just perfection. I loved all the stuff with the herbs, that added so much to the atmosphere/setting. I also love the discussions around death and helping give people a good death and knowing when their time has come. I also liked how the families have to choose between sending their loved one to the afterlife to be judged and their soul can live on forever or to be resurrected for a few years but they soul goes into oblivion. Very though provoking, especially around the ethics and morality of doing this - I also liked how the best interests of the person was discussed. This book also brought up some struggles it's easy to face as someone who works in a healthcare setting, such as feeling guilty when a patient dies and like it's your fault even though you did everything you could, deling with the anger and grief of families and the general emotional exhaustion that comes with providing care and being deeply empathatic.

And finally the ending. I am not okay T_T. I teared up a least twice (a rarity for me in books) and everything just comes to a perfect head, the poltical tension in the land that has been building up, the interpersonal conflicts in the village, the emotional stakes. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

I started my October by picking up this book and I have to say it was a perfect, atmospheric and beautiful read for the season.
From the first page I was pulled straight into the world of the witchlings and their dead house where they serve as healers, midwives and accompany the dead to the underworld. The book is told from the perspective of Haley who at 7 years old was abandoned by her mother for using “death-magic”, she is left in the care of a Witchling named Marian and must come to terms with her new life and learn how to take Marian’s place when she dies.
Watching Haley’s relationship with Marian develop from one of resentment and hate to one full of respect and love was heartwarming yet tragic and really elevated the story for me.
Haley really stood out as a main character as she was easy to relate to and held my attention throughout the book. She made mistakes but always tried to do her best when it came to her work as a witchling. Throughout this book there is a war being fought and although we never see the front line we get to see the effect it has on the village and the way the witchlings operate which added another layer to the story and served the plot well. Another thing that really stood out to me was the magic system that was used - it was fascinating and original and was never over explained so the mystery was kept ‘til the very end.

This book has been one of my favourite reads this year - a beautiful yet tragic tale with perfect pacing and a storyline that I couldn’t put down. If you're looking for a witchy read that’s not only magical but full of heart I would highly recommend you give it a try.

I really enjoyed this book! It follows Haley who is abandoned at the age of 7 by her mother to be the successor of a witchling.

Haley has the power to raise and guide the dead and we follow her from an angry, lost girl who is mourning the loss of her old life, to an apprentice learning to grow and come to terms with her new life, creating new relationships and it’s just so incredibly detailed you really start to grow attached to Haley as a character.

The descriptions the author gives are amazing and I genuinely felt like I had stepped into another world and easily managed to lose myself in this book.

I can’t wait to read more by Helena Coggan, I will definitely be looking out for her books!

This was the perfect book for October!

What an absolutely fantastic, magical read. It’s a crime to have to wait till next year to get my grabby hands on a physical edition!

The way Helena writes is wonderful and made this book such an interesting and captivating read.
We begin in the eyes of a 7 year old girl. The perspective given from someone of this age is refreshing. Haley is deathly afraid, of monsters and being in trouble, whilst referencing a future where she becomes what scared her.

Set in the house of the dead, the pages ooze both death and witching which enthrals you. To want to read more. To dive through the pages yourself.

Haley grows up to become the witchling, her purpose in life is to selflessly help others through sickness and death whilst vowing to forsake herself of all we deem are our rights - she cannot marry, love or create relationships that may cloud her judgement.

Towards the end I worried, how can this story complete. Will it be disappointing, open ended even? However, no. The last two lines, though I won’t spoil them, gripped at my heart and left me feeling satisfied yet curious still that this was the end.

Thank you so much Hodder Books for this ARC, I’m very grateful to have been allowed the opportunity to discover and love such a wonderful read.

Wow.
The Witchling's Girl is beautifully written and intense in all the right places. Haley is forced into becoming the witchling's girl at a very young age when she begins to show signs of magic and healing and this book follows her as she grows up under the guidance of Marian, the witchling of the village. Haley makes mistakes and breaks her vows multiple times in the name of love but this is what makes her such a good character because it shows that it is ok to make mistakes as long as you own up to it and deal with it. The vows are cruel and I'm glad she was selfish when it comes to matters of the heart and I loved the character of Leah, even though she is shown to not have the capability to have feelings for people she still cares a lot for Haley.
This book is certainly one of my favourite reads of the year and I am surprised with how good it was and it will stay with me for a while.

The end of October was meant to mark the end of my witchy recommendations, but I HAVE ONE MORE! The Witchling’s Girl is atmospheric, dark and such a unique witchy read.

On the day Haley reawakens her pet cat, who had just died, her mother delivers her to the Witchling’s house, to spend the rest of her life training to take over the Witchling’s position. Devastated, young Haley tries everything to escape her fate, but every village must have a Witchling. Without one their sick would not be healed, their babies may not be born alive and there would be no-one to carry their dead to the underworld….or re-animate them if the family wishes. As she learns the ways of the Witchling, the vows she must take, including the forsaking of all loved ones and any chance at a future relationship or family, seem harder and harder to live by.

I love my witchy books to be the type that pull me in to a dark world, and hold me spellbound until the end and The Witchling’s Girl captivated me from the very start. There is nothing fluffy about the magic performed by the Witchling and the story is full of closely held secrets and the raw brutality of the inescapable parts of life. This book is not a rush of action, it develops at a meandering pace that is perfect for a spooky read. The characters are exceptionally well developed and although there were a lot of side characters to keep track of, I never had a problem connecting the dots of who was who. I loved the way we got to watch Haley grow, as the elder Witchling aged, throughout the story. It connected me so completely to them both. The writing was nothing short of magical and this haunting story took my emotions and shook them to the core. Make sure you add this one to your TBR!

She was only a child when Haley brought her cat back to life and her mother had to take her to Marian, the Witchling of her small town. Haley is being abandoned and betrayed by her own mother and she doesn't handle it well. She now becomes the Witchling's girl and we see slowly the process of this procedure throughout the years. We see her grow along with the witch and learn everything from her for when her time comes.

If you're looking for some witchy books, look no further. This book is perfect for Halloween or whenever you feel the need to read something dark and haunting. I loved every page, the characters were complex and well developed and I loved the pacing of the story and the fact that I could never guess what would happen next or what secrets these characters kept in the past or what they were hiding in the present.

"I could never leave. Not even for a week. When Marian died, I would be the witchling of this town, and their dead would need me. I was chained forever to these people who did not love me."

The world building and all the facts surrounding their kind of witchcraft was fascinating to read. The House of Dead was definitely something I didn't expect to love and I was pleasantly surprised by this. The relationship between Marian and Haley was something I truly enjoyed reading , how it started and how it developed. Definitely one of my favorite reads this month and I would highly recommend it. I'm certain you'll fall in love with these characters and this intricate and unique world building the author has created.

ARC was kindly provided by Hodder & Stoughton, via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

The moment I saw that Helena Coggan had written another book I knew I wanted to read it.

The Orphanage of the Gods is a book that lives rent free in the back of my mind and after finishing the Witchlings Girl it seems it is just a gift of the authors to create worlds and characters which stay with you.

I loved every aspect, every word and every sentence of the Witchlings Girl.
The pacing and the world building and the lyrical, yet harsh prose fit together like a puzzle piece.

It is a story which came running from the left, out of the blue, and bowled me over - leaving me utterly and completely confused and yet in wonder.

Haley herself is a contradictory character, one which feels you with hope, and then also makes you want to bash your head against a wall in frustration. She is a coward, and yet a truly human being who can and will become more as she grows.

The timeline of the books is the only aspect which annoyed me a little -, it jumps back on itself and moves from one moment to the next - not always in a linear fashion, which left me confused in the beginning of the book before I got the hang of its movement.

There is an opportunity in this book for an epic fantasy novel, and yet what we follow is the death and life of a small village witchling and those are books I think we need just as much as the ones depicting the wars that change countries.

I was throughly humbled. I laughed and I cried a little at this book.
And in the end I wanted to go back to the first page and read it again.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed reading The Witchling's Girl.

This book tells the story of Haley, who discovers she's a witchling... which basically means she has the power to raise and guide the dead.. we follow her time as the Witchling's girl while she's training and learning how to care for the sick and dead in her town, all the way up to her time as the witchling and then her death.

Witchlings are not allowed to have family or friends but Haley manages to have meaningful relationships with some of the people in her town.

The story is told incredibly well but it's also incredibly heartbreaking. Helena Coggan's writing is lush and detailed without being boring and bogged down. She tells Haley's story perfectly. ❤

The Witchling's Girl is the story of Haley, a young girl who discovers that she possesses a strange magic when she accidentally brings her dead cat back to life. Unfortunately for her, this is death magic, and means that her life is about to change forever. Given away by her family, she's made to go live with the Witchling, the town's healer, midwife, and undertaker. Now Haley must learn the ways of the Witchling, learn how to heal the sick, raise the dead, and deliver corpses to the underworld in service to the people who now fear her powers.

I was instantly hooked with The Witchling's Girl. There was something about this strange new world that fascinated me, and the fact that Helena Coggan chose to write the book from Haley's point of view is a large part of this. Much like Haley we start the experience not knowing much, and discover things through her perspective. At first Marian, the town Witchling, is a frightening figure, one who is keeping Haley from her family, forcing her into a life that she does not want. But over the course of the book our perception of things changes alongside Haley's, we discover just what the Witchlings are, and why they're important, and just like Haley, we come to see it as an vital and noble calling, one that isn't to be feared.

The subtle shifts that Coggan allows to play out in the story are fantastic, and the Haley we follow at the start of the book is so different from who she is midway through, and who she then goes on to be at the end of the book that you don't even realise how radical a journey and changes she's been through until you look back once you've reached the end. We have a protagonist who is a terrified child, a dutiful student, a loving friend, a lawbreaker, and a determined protector. Haley goes through such an amazing journey in this book that she's a more well rounded and multifaceted a character than some I've seen in series that span several novels. And despite her magical abilities, and her different world, she's so human and so relatable that you'll be hard pressed not to fall in love with her.

The novel is set in some unnamed fantasy world, a place where the worlds of the afterlife, and the rules around death, are very different. We get hints of this throughout the book, of nations at war with each other, beings who have descended from heaven to walk amongst humans, but all of this is background, barely touching up against the heart of the story, which is the life of this one woman. At first I found myself wanting to learn more about this world, but then I realised it didn't really matter. We get given the information that we need, that's important to Haley's story, and that's it. In a story about a woman who can't leave her hometown, who has to be easy to find and accessible so that she can help the people around her the things that don't directly affect her aren't important. Do I really need to know about this land far away that an army is planning to invade? No, not really, and I was really okay with that. It felt like a bigger, more realised world because Coggan didn't feel the need to try and show this stuff off, and simply allowed readers to experience this small corner of it.

With so many fantasy stories wanting to show off the worlds they inhabit, to tell grand, sweeping epics with the fate of the world on the line it felt like a breath of fresh air to have a book that slowed things down a little, and allowed its characters to be the important part. This is a book about people more than anything else, about a young woman forced into a life she never asked for, who's trying to do the best she can for people, and who ultimately wants to do the right thing, even if that's not the easiest thing. The Witchling's Girl is a one of the first books for 2021 I've read, but it's one that I know I'm still going to look fondly on come the end of the year; an absolute amazing read.

5 stars

An atmospheric, beautifully written YA novel about magic, self-sacrifice and one girl's search for who she really is. ⠀

Hayley was born with the gift of death-magic and at age seven (after she was caught resurrecting her cat), Hayley’s mother hands her off to the care of Marion at the House of Dead, where she must vow to abandon any hope of family/ love and future relationships and give her life to become the next Witchling.

Hayley tries everything to escape her dark and solitary life but every Village must have a Witchling (their healer; their midwife; their bridge between the living and the Underworld) and so she is torn and tormented by her fate.
Coggan skills fully crafts a fantastic, dark yet captivating tale, as we see Hayley seeking to find her place in this world - bound by duty, fear and love. It really is captivating to see how Hayley’s character develops, as she goes from a troubled young girl into a powerful Witchling.

You all know how much I love my witchy books and this story did not fall short. From
the very first page, I was truly enthralled and entertained. It’s not a whimsical story but rather a slow, raw and atmospheric narrative. The writing is magical and characters are unique and fascinating. A cliche, but it really was a gripping page- turner. ⠀

Thank you to the author, @hodderbooks and @netgalley for the arc. Releasing on the 7th January, this is definitely one for your TBR.

5 starlights ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟

Death magic, witchlings, an army of lords, and witches. A perfect combination for this vivid and intense story that pulled me in from the first page and didn't let go. Hayley is born with death-magic and at the age of seven becomes the Witchling's girl. After the army of lord Jonathan invades her town and her Witchling mentor Marian is killed, Hayley becomes the witching and must now tend to the town's sick and dead. Witchling's take vows and as Hayley struggles to keep hers we are pulled deeper and deeper into the story and her faith in the witch Leah.

The writing is beautiful and lyrical and a pure joy to read. The world is brought to life in truly stunning atmospheric descriptions so you feel like you are in the House of the Dead surrounded by death and sickness and ghosts. It is a beautiful and yet tragic tale the flows at just the right pace. It pulls at the heartstrings and keeps you captive as you turn page after page to see what fate has in store for Hayley next.

The action is tense in all the right places and I certainly look forward to reading more from the author. I loved everything about this book and can't wait to recommend it to friends and family.