So I have these two lives, right? The life of me as a pagan, with all my pagan friends – many of whom are queer – and that’s one side of things. Then I have the life of me as a reader of queer fiction, with many queer fiction reading (and writing) friends. And then you get a moment like this, where both of those worlds get to intersect, and you get to see how awesome it would be when a great writer combines realistic paganism with queer fiction.

For many of us pagans, this is exactly what it’s like. Quiet nods to deity. Offerings and getting together with friends and nothing you’d see in a television show, but still having plenty of profound moments that create growth, love, transformation and more. Also seeing a bunch of people with different practices getting together and talking easily about those practices, even though they don’t always sync up, struck me as being very true to real life.

Quite outside of that, I adored Lars as a main character and as the introduction to the Witches universe. He’s sweet and caring, he cooks hearty food and renovates homes. He is constantly drawn to the potential beauty in what others may see as rundown and ramshackle, which is why it’s not surprising that he stays with Rhys despite his severe illness, not only seeing so much beauty in him in the present, but also in the potential of what could be.

Lars and Rhys’ relationship was a fascinating one that explores what it can really be like when two people are dealing with an illness that makes itself part of a relationship by how huge and energy demanding it is. The hurt/comfort factor is wonderful - that's something I love to read in general and this book delivered. I liked that Rhys was realistically ill. He didn’t ‘have the illness’ during one scene, and then not at all during another (as a person with chronic illness, I get very tired of this with any kind of illness, including mental ones). He had a groundedness in how he approached his illness that I think a lot of sick people have and use, even as a defence or as a way to hold people away from them. Watching that play out and create conflict between Lars and Rhys was actually really satisfying for me on a personal level.

The other characters in the ensemble are also really interesting and you can sense a lot of room for development and story in future books. I liked Julian the most out of the group, not in a ‘I’d like to be your friend’ way, but in a ‘you have a really electrifying energy, and tend to charge scenes with a certain kind of dynamism’ way. I don’t think everyone will like him, but that’s what I love about him. Polarising characters are great at getting people invested, and he certainly hooked me in, while I was still getting to know Lars.

As for the magical side of things well, I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will say it all felt very true to real life across the different practices I’ve had over the years. I think anyone living on one of the branches of the huge tree that is paganism will find something familiar here, and to read it in a fictional m/m love story, instead of in a non-fiction tome, strikes me as a very Bardic thing to be doing, and I am so here for this kind of storyweaving, which reaches out to folks regardless of their beliefs. Definitely recommended.
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Aleksandr Voinov doing paranormal? Yes please! ( )