NetGalley ARC • Boldwood Books • Dual Timeline • Releases 3 September 2026
THE SNOW WITCH
★★★★★
Give me witches, old wells, forgotten goddesses, seventeenth-century accusations, and a place where the past refuses to stay politely buried, and I am already halfway convinced.
Give me witches, old wells, forgotten goddesses, seventeenth-century accusations, and a place where the past refuses to stay politely buried, and I am already halfway convinced.
The Snow Witch gave me exactly that.
Set between 1650 and the present day, the story follows Meg Noble, a healer and midwife living near Hadrian’s Wall, as fear from the Newcastle Witch Trials spreads through the north, and Violet Marsh, a historian centuries later, who arrives to research the legend Meg left behind.
And obviously, things do not remain simply historical for very long.
The beginning was a little slow for me. It took some time before I felt completely inside the story, and there are moments where the writing circles around the same atmosphere or emotions more than once.
But once the past and present began pulling closer together? There we go.
That was the book I had been waiting for.
I loved the folklore woven through the story, especially Coventina’s Well, the sacred dagger and the idea of something ancient sitting quietly underneath centuries of history waiting for somebody to disturb it.
And Meg’s story is the part that stayed with me most.
There is something particularly infuriating about reading stories set during the witch trials and watching women whose knowledge should have made them valuable become suspicious precisely because they knew things.
Healing. Herbs. Birth. Bodies. Nature.
Apparently, being useful while female was already suspicious enough.
The historical and supernatural elements work beautifully together here because the haunting is not just about ghosts. It is about memory, injustice, and stories that were never properly allowed to end.
And by the final part of the book, I was completely invested in seeing how Meg and Violet’s stories would finally meet.
Was it a little slow getting there?
Yes.
Did I care by the end?
Not really. 😂
Because I finished it thinking exactly what I always think when I find another atmospheric witchy book:
PLEASE KEEP PUBLISHING THESE.
Seriously. Publishers, if anyone is taking notes, I would like more witches. More forgotten women. More folklore. More ancient wells. More strange things happening near ruins. More women being accused of witchcraft because they knew what a plant did.
I will read them.
Thank you very much.
And I am already looking at The Witch of the Solstice because apparently, this is simply who I am now. 😂
For me, 5 stars.
The past does not stay buried simply because history stopped writing it down.
What stayed with me most was the way Meg’s knowledge, care and usefulness become reasons to fear her, while the present-day story asks what happens when those old stories are finally disturbed again.
The opening took longer to pull me fully inside than I wanted, but the combination of witch-trial history, folklore, Coventina’s Well and the eventual convergence of past and present won me over completely.
And yes, my official position remains unchanged: publishers should keep giving me witches.
Meg Noble
A healer and midwife whose knowledge should make her valuable, yet becomes exactly the thing that makes her dangerous in other people’s eyes.
The Folklore
Coventina’s Well, the sacred dagger and the feeling of something ancient sitting quietly beneath centuries of ordinary history.
Past + Present
Meg in 1650 and Violet centuries later gradually pull toward one another until the historical and supernatural stories finally meet.
The Beginning
A little slow and occasionally repetitive for me, but once the timelines began tightening around each other, I was completely invested.
Book & review details
Witch-trial history, dual timelines, forgotten women, healers and midwives, British folklore, old wells, sacred places, atmospheric supernatural fiction, ancient objects, historical injustice and stories where the past is very much not finished with the present.
More reviews from Lupe Farkas
I review ARCs and independently discovered books across witch fiction, fantasy, psychological fiction, romance, literary fiction and anything with enough atmosphere to make me forget what time it is.
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Reviews on LupeFarkas.com are independent. Receiving an ARC never guarantees a positive rating, but every accepted book receives real attention and an honest attempt to understand what worked, what did not and which readers may love it.
How quickly can a book sell itself to you by mentioning witches, folklore and an old well?
For me, apparently, approximately three seconds.