Dark Sisters

I expected Dark Sisters by Kristi DeMeester to be feminist and witchy, which it was. I did not expect it to be legitimately scary and somewhat gruesome, nor did I expect it to be a virtual treatise for smashing the patriarchy, but here we are, and I am here for it. 

Dark Sisters follow three timelines of one bloodline, from Anne Bolton in 1750 to Mary Shephard in 1953 to Camilla Burton in 2007 and the power that should be theirs thanks to their relationship to the earth and to a large black walnut tree. This tree is a fount of power and the tree where women see the Dark Sisters…and are gaslit by the men in their lives into believing they were dreaming and that the Dark Sisters are nothing but a fairy tale. 

Through all three timelines, we watch as first Anne and Mary and Camilla and every woman connected to them has their agency taken by their husbands, fathers, and church leaders, either overtly or through behavioral and societal conditioning. I consider myself liberated and independent, I was raised by a single mother, I’m married to a man who is also a feminist, but I still recognized behaviors - especially in Camilla’s timeline - that are so ingrained that I forget some of the ways I and other “free” women are still oppressed.

All the while, women are not only figuratively, but are literally, dying as their bodies are ravaged by what they call a viral infection - but one that ends in a violent suicide if the woman doesn’t recover. And the people in the inordinately wealthy community of Hawthorne Springs just accept it as, I guess, the cost of having their lives charmed by following “the Path” - which is, naturally, the “path” followed by decent, churchgoing folk. (Sarcasm font). 

Dark Sisters is full of the frustration and rage that many women have felt and, in my lifetime, especially the last 10 years in America. I’m not sure this book would have hit with the same impact in 2015, but today, on the other side of some of the most backward movement against women’s and human rights in generations, it’s a talisman for all women, witches, and people who have had enough. 

Also, it’s just a darn scary horror book. 

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advance copy for my unbiased review.