A Sorceress Comes to Call: A charming love story interrupted with sorcery and murder

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher 

A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher’s most recent 2024 novel, is a magical regency-style romance, with lengthy interruptions by the machinations of a cruel, selfish sorceress, attacks by her demonic familiar, and the occasional murder.

I don’t think I’ve read anything by Kingfisher that I didn’t love, and this book is no different, although the questions I had with this one surfaced while I was reading and not afterward. To focus on what worked best, though, I’d call out, as always, Kingfisher’s prose. Here it’s smooth and witty, and the wit is often deceptive, as the author helps us glide through a beautifully shaped sentence straight onto the sting at the end. Then there are her characters, especially a trio of women “of a certain age,” who made the book for me. The titular sorceress is believably developed, someone you will understand and still love to hate. The descriptions are masterful, especially those of the familiar, first described as beautiful, ultimately as something otherworldly and terrifying.

The book introduces us to Cordelia first, a quiet fourteen-year-old girl whose mother controls her, literally, by “making her obedient,” often for hours at a time. During these periods, Cordelia can’t even move unless her mother makes her. Cordelia’s only friends are a girl from town, Ellen, and her mother’s white horse, Falada. Cordelia’s mother, Evangeline, is using powerful magic, and it’s evil. Soon her male “benefactor” in the small town where they live disappoints her, so she decides to find a richer prospect. They journey into a city where Evangeline entangles a wealthy squire in her charms.

The squire, Samuel, has an unmarried sister, Hester, who is a remarkable judge of character. She sees through Evangeline immediately although she doesn’t guess that the woman is a sorceress. Realizing there will be no easy way to rescue her brother from matrimony, she throws together a house party, inviting two women friends, Imogene and Penelope, and Hester’s old love, Richard, Lord Evermore. After a terrible act of violence, Cordelia goes to Hester and admits her mother is a sorceress, and the five of them join forces.

Kingfisher makes the dining-table insults and drawing room strategies as poisonous as Evangeline’s magic, and the back-and-forth once Cordelia reveals her mother’s secret is also convincing. When the group decides that maybe Evangeline is a sorceress, the race is on to determine how to stop her or at least strip her magic. When Evangeline marries Samuel, the stakes climb. The final fourth of the book is highly suspenseful as our protagonists face failure and uncertainty, and demonic familiar takes center stage.

I loved the dialogue, the wisdom of maids and butlers, and the props of the old-fashioned “regency romance,” even though this tale is clearly set in a second world. Hester was my favorite character, a tough, observant, brilliant woman who has time to lament the toll age has taken on her body. I did wonder how Cordelia, raised solely by Evangeline, could have the strong moral compass and degree of empathy she possesses, but it’s possible that her town friend, Ellen showed her kindness, and Cordelia learned from her. Cordelia was my biggest problem in the book, and it wasn’t big enough to dilute my enjoyment.

If you like Kingfisher, you’ll like A Sorceress Comes to Call. If you haven’t read anything of hers, this book would be an enjoyable, suspenseful place to start.