About this book
Blurb via Goodreads
Big Little Lies meets The Witches of Eastwick—a gloriously entertaining and knife-sharp feminist revenge fantasy about three women whose midlife crisis brings unexpected new powers—putting them on a collision course with the evil that lurks in their wealthy beach town.
In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment…
After Nessa James’s husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, she’s left all alone in a trim white house not far from the ocean. In the quiet of her late forties, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn’t take long for Nessa to realize that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead—a gift she’s inherited from her grandmother, which comes with special responsibilities.
On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. She hasn’t left her house in months, and from the outside, it appears as if she and her garden have both gone to seed. But Harriet’s life is far from over—in fact, she’s undergone a stunning and very welcome metamorphosis.
Ambitious former executive Jo Levison has spent thirty long years at war with her body. The free-floating rage and hot flashes that arrive with the beginning of menopause feel like the very last straw—until she realizes she has the ability to channel them, and finally comes into her power.
Guided by voices only Nessa can hear, the trio of women discover a teenage girl whose body was abandoned beside a remote beach. The police have written the victim off as a drug-addicted sex worker, but the women refuse to buy into the official narrative. Their investigation into the girl’s murder leads to more bodies, and to the town’s most exclusive and isolated enclave, a world of stupendous wealth where the rules don’t apply. With their newfound powers, Jo, Nessa, and Harriet will take matters into their own hands…
Setting the scene for “The Change”, I Googled “Mattauk, Long Island” to get a feel of what this area looks like. This seems to be a fictional town though, but with the creative use of slightly tweaked spelling of the name, I got a good idea in my mind of what it looks like. I picture it to be an exclusive hamlet, with beautiful beaches and gorgeous homes. It is this exact clean-cut and well-groomed look and feel of Mattauk that is “disrupted” by one of our lead protagonists, Harriet Osbourne’s “out of control” garden – and that is where the story starts.
In “The Change” we get to know three (fabulous, fierce, badass) females – Harriet, Jo and Nessa. Together, they discover that, with the onset of menopause (i.e “the change”), they became much more in tune with their bodies and (magical) powers and strength. Harriet is the “earth mother” who concocts potions and poisons from her garden, Jo can manipulate heat and fire and Nessa can see and interact with ghosts.
You get “the power of three” feel – and actually as mentioned in the blurb, strong “The Witches of Eastwick” vibes (the 1987 movie, not the lame TV-series). The three women unite in their joint aim of breaking the chauvinistic and patriarchal chains controlling their lives in various shapes and forms and seek revenge and/or whilst investigating a spade of murders in their town. Sisters doing it for themselves.
I absolutely loved this book! It is fierce and fabulous, overflowing with feminist force, finding empowerment and justice in the most badass way ever. Each of the three female leads brings a strong back-story to the table, and with brilliant character development and fast-paced storytelling I was hooked from the start. I even started casting the movie adaptation in my head, so strong the visualisation in “The Change” was for me!
It is a bit challenging to put this in a specific genre (not that it is an issue, it just shows how a unique offering this is) – this book offers quite a bit of overlapping and diversity of themes – how about magical/thriller/female fiction? It is clever, witty, funny, and fiery! Can I say again that I absolutely loved it?
A few favourite quotes:
• “Why do you think women are designed to outlive men? Why do we keep going for thirty years after our bodies can no longer reproduce? Do you think nature meant for those years to be useless? No, of course not. Our lives are designed to have three parts. The first is education. The second, creation. And in part three, we put our experience to use and protect those who are weaker.”
• “That doesn’t offend me. ‘Witch’ is the label society slaps on women it can’t understand or control.”
• “Yes, you’re afraid of me because I’m better than you are. And if you give one talented woman the power she deserves, another will follow. Then another. And together they’ll show that their way is better. Then your whole fake fucking world will come tumbling down.”
• “Anger’s like rocket fuel. Either it pushes you forward or it burns you alive.”
• “Justice may be slow, but she’s also relentless.”
• “Nothing ages a person like poverty and misery”
Five stars!
I listened to the audiobook, courtesy of #NetGalley and Harper Collins Audio/Harper Collins UK. It was brilliantly narrated by January LaVoy.
About the Author: https://www.kirstenmillerbooks.com/