Hekate’s Return: a Review

A bronze age witch story

I was initially very excited to start this novel by Mark Harris, his first in the fantasy realm. I love the bronze age, I love witches, so I jumped right in.

The branding is immediately on point — orange cover, the font feels like an old book discovered in the library of Alexandria, and it’s dedicated to the witches in the Author’s life. Perfect.

We start from the perspective of Sandar, the General of the witches, when her camp comes under attack by animalistic humans. It becomes clear that they have help from the Bull God, Apis, and the entire attack is a diversion to steal their young. The witches are unable to recover their children or find a trace of the offending tribe, and so begin their life anew, always looking for their remnants of their lost generation.

Next we have the perspective of Sara, a thirteen year old girl living in a modern city built on the gifts of Moloch. What becomes clear is that the price the community is paying for these gifts is the very same children stolen from the witches, which they view as the Great Rescue.

Things begin to devolve very quickly when the witches find out where their children are, and how they are being sacrificed for the successes of this new, modern City.

There are so many things to love about this book, it has all the elements of success. However, I don’t feel like it always was. There are a few hallmarks of a young fantasy writer, some tropes a seasoned fantasy reader would spot from a mile away, and some prose that could have been tightened. There are also some incredibly thoughtful aspects.

Let me explain.

Too much exposition

Part of the joy of fantasy is discovery. Finding out what world you are in, how it works, what goes on. It is like playing detective in every story you read. However, when the author explains whats going on too much, or too often, if immediately takes me out of the adventure.

I found this to be a common practice for Harris, particularly around the witch’s magic system. Witches can invoke a few types of spells. Some are incantations that have hand movements and perhaps supporting plants, others are manipulation of the elements themselves, but the most used magic is commands over other beings. These are all signified by a capitalized word in italics. Influence, or Harm, or Speed. Not only do we see that visually as we read, Harris also explain what it is fairly often. “The witched used Journey, a spell to send herself a long distance without her body moving,…”.

Every fantasy book needs to explain what is going on so the reader isn’t completely lost (unless you are Steven Erikson). That being said, there is more subtle ways of doing that than Harris employed. I didn’t have to discover anything. I wasn’t left wondering trying to connect the dots. I felt like a sidebar, outside of the story, to tell me how the magic worked. Weaving details into the story, maybe in mentoring a young witch, or in a battle scene where they have to use the magic, would have felt more natural.

Some things were way too convenient

You know when your’e reading a book, and there is a tonne of tension, and you don’t know how the characters are going to get out of the scrape they are in, and then suddenly a character reveals a skill that is exactly what is needed? Yeah, me too. It sucks.

It feels like a waste of tension. Everything is perfectly pulled together for something dramatic, and instead the author fabricates an easy way out. It’s disappointing.

Unfortunately, it happens in this book a few times. For example, two of our main characters are captured, but one is able to escape. She’s an untrained witch and she somehow knows exactly what to do to free the experienced witch.

“There was no one down the path to the right. But a guard down the path to the left. Instinct told her that The Just would be there. Instinct also told her that she would somehow know to speak in that very strange tone of voice again, and make the guard do her bidding. An Instinct told her to imagine she was invisible. Imagine he could not see her at all. Illusion. It appeared to work.”

Do you see what I mean? The girls somehow knows what to do, instead of taking a risk. If she had tried these things without the knowledge that it would work, the reader would have been on the edge of their seat. Instead, we know that she will walk directly to the other witch, be invisible, and succeed. It takes the air out of the scene.

There is another scene where the witches have asked for help from the Mammoths, but only a few senior witches can Commune with them who are conveniently not around. Not to worry, one of the witches grandmothers taught him how to speak Mammoth! How great is that!? If you are picturing Dory speaking to whales, you aren’t far off.

That being said, there are some really special parts of the story.

The names are excellent

It started with a reference to Hekate and Diana. Not a name you see very often, unless, like me, you are interested in Greek history. Then came Yahweh. Then Moloch. And suddenly I had put it together.

Harris has chosen specific names, rooted in folk lore and the mythology of Egypt, Greece, and early Israelites to ground his narrative. Apis, who led the bull army against the witches, is the Bull God in Egyptian tradition. In this story, his son is Moloch, a half bull half human god who is helping the humans in exchange for the sacrifice of witch children. Moloch in our history, is mentioned in the Old Testament as a Canaanite God closely tied to child sacrifice. The City they live in is also Gehenna, where according to the Old Testament, children were burned in sacrifice to Moloch.

The King of the humans is named Baltezaar, same as one of the last King’s of Babylon which Yahweh condemns. The name also means, protect the king, which is exactly what Baltezaar attempts to do within Hekate’s Return — protect himself, even if he betrays his friends.

I could go on and on, but suffice to say, I kept google open to research the connections these names had as I was reading and the lore that Harris was invoking by using them.

Ultimately, I did finish this book, and enjoyed parts of it, however I don’t think I would recommend this to an experienced fantasy reader. Some of these elements are just too blatant for someone who already has seen them in other books.

Hi, I am Sasha Suvorova. I write about things I care about and dabble in original fiction. If you like that kind of stuff, support and feedback really help!

Thanks for reading :)