“History might easily be rewritten, but someone somewhere always remembers what truly happened.”
Ryber Fortiza is a Sightwitch Sister living in a convent hidden within a mountain. Ryber waits for the day she’ll be summoned into the mountain’s depths to receive the Sight from her goddess like all the other Sisters before her.
But Ryber is never called.
Years pass. Soon, more and more Sisters are called into the mountain leaving Ryber behind until she is the only Sister left.
Uncertain of what she will find, Ryber ventures deeper into the mountain to find her Sisters before it’s too late. With no one to turn to except for an odd bird called The Rook and a stranger with no memory of his past or how he arrived inside the convent, Ryber will have to learn to trust herself and her own gifts if she wants to save the other Sisters in Sightwitch (2018) by Susan Dennard.
Sightwitch is a companion novella in Dennard’s popular fantasy series which begins with Truthwitch and Windwitch. The novella is meant to be read between Windwitch and Bloodwitch and provides crucial set up for Bloodwitch so plan your reading accordingly.
Unlike the other books in this series Sightwitch is an epistolary novel written as Ryber’s journal about her time as a Sightwitch including illustrations and other marginalia. Readers familiar with the series will recognize Ryber and her amnesiac stranger Kullen from their crucial roles in Truthwitch and appreciate this prequel that offers more of their respective histories.
Sightwitch does a lot of the heavy lifting for this series by setting up the world and explaining the backstory both for Ryber and the overarching plot of the series. Basic tenets of how magic works in the Witchlands can also be found here from Ryber’s observations when she first becomes a Sightwitch Sister.
The depth and intricacy of this story goes a long way to make up for the messiness of relying on a companion novella to explain key details that should have been present much earlier in the series. It also helps ease the blow of not having Ryber as a point of view character in any of the other novels (so far).
Ryber is an entertaining heroine in a suspenseful story with a palpable sense of urgency. It’s easy to appreciate her tenacity and determination as she tries to save her Sisters despite lacking the Sight to navigate the mountain’s deepest chambers. Although this is a contained story it contains several surprising twists that will leave readers eager for the next installment. A must-read for Witchlanders everywhere.
Possible Pairings: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard, A Season of Sinister Dreams by Tracy Banghart, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Passenger by Alexandra Bracken, Roar by Cora Carmack, The Reader by Traci Chee, The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi, The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco, Witchlanders by Lena Coakley, Chasing Power by Sarah Beth Durst, Scarlet by A. C. Gaughen, The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey, The Glass Sentence by S. E. Grove, Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton, The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks, Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim, Forest of Souls by Lori M. Lee, Furyborn by Claire Legrand, Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller, Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, Angel Mage by Garth Nix, The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson, There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool, Dreams Lie Beneath by Rebecca Ross, Iron Cast by Destiny Soria, Song of the Current by Sarah Tolcser
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