Review: The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland (ARC)
From the publisher:
Three girls, one supernatural killer on the loose . . .
Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to consider--that her murdered sister is gone forever and there is nothing she can do about it. Rather than grieving and moving on, Zara decides she will do whatever it takes to claw her sister back from the grave--even trading in the occult.
Jude Wolf may be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. After a deal with a demon went horribly wrong, her soul has been slowly turning necrotic. It's a miserable existence marred by pain, sickness, and monstrous things that taunt her in the night. Now that she's glimpsed what's beyond the veil, Jude's desperate to find someone to undo the damage she's done to herself.
Enter Emer Byrne, an orphaned witch with a dark past and a deadly power, a.k.a. the solution to both Zara's and Jude's problems. Though Emer lives a hardscrabble life, she gives away her most valuable asset--her invocations--to women in desperate situations who are willing to sacrifice a piece of their soul in exchange for a scrap of power. Zara and Jude are willing, but they first have to find Emer.
When Emer's clients start turning up dead all over London, a vital clue leads Zara and Jude right to her. If a serial killer is targeting her clients, Emer wants to know why--and to stop them. She strikes a tenuous alliance with Zara and Jude to hunt a killer before they are next on his list, even if she can't give them in return what Zara and Jude want most: a sister and a soul.
Review:
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for the ARC of this book.
I read a sample on BookishFirst and was immediately drawn in. The premise of the story is that only women are allowed magic. In order to get it, they need a curse writer to write an invocation that is seared into their skin. Each invocation trades a piece of your soul to a demon who gives you the power you've requested.
The story is told from three very different points of view. Emer is a curse writer and comes from a long line of witches. Sadly, her coven was murdered by witch hunters and she's been in hiding ever since. Zara's mother abandoned her and her sister when they were young and then her sister was murdered leaving Zara alone and searching for her killer. She's decided to turn to necromancy in the hopes of bringing her back. Jude is your quintessential spoiled rich girl who dabbled with the occult and managed to curse herself. She's been hunting for a witch ever since to break her curse. When witches start getting murdered, their paths cross and our story really begins.
Part murder mystery, part supernatural tale, part allegory on how men always try to break down women when they come into their own power, this was one of my five star reads of the year, and the first for December. I couldn't put it down, I stopped trying to figure out the mystery and just let it take me on the journey. I was shocked, awed, unsurprised, and happy with the ending and I know that I will be thinking about this story for a long time.
5/5 Stars
The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland has a release date of January 30, 2024