I took a hard pivot from my first Colleen Hoover book to my (first?) book about witches since my most recent re-read of Harry Potter in 2015. I read Alex Gordon’s 2016 novel, Jericho, which is the second in the Lauren Reardon series. Lauren is a witch, a Child of Endor, who protects the civilian world (our world) from evil trying to “seep through.” Obviously, I’m going to think about Harry Potter because of witches and the protective veneer, if you will, between the otherworldly and magical, and the civilian world, and even Gordon is self-referential about it, but her book is 100 percent its own entity, and a riveting page-turner, with an interesting assortment of fully-realized characters.
I’ve long said one of my favorite set-ups for a book is bringing a cast of characters to a far-off mansion and then horror ensues. With Gordon’s fantasy-horror book, we get that: Lauren, who is protecting Gideon, Illinois, travels to a remote Oregon mansion in the Pacific woods, where a rich man, Andrew Carmody (I felt like this had to be a play on Andrew Carnegie, right?), brings her, four other witches, all of whom are on the Council overseeing … witches, and a civilian lawyer named Jenny, along for the trip. There’s also Gene Kaster, Carmody’s right-hand man, and Carmody’s troubled 15-year-old daughter, Nyssa.
We know horror is going to ensue because the book opens with a poor photographer looking to make it big with the tabloids by taking pictures of Jericho, the ruins of a pseudo-town in the Pacific woods near Carmody’s mansion, and he’s swarmed by something and seemingly killed. That begins happening with the witches, and we learn that it’s Fernanda, Carmody’s wife and Nyssa’s mother, who went missing in those woods 10 years earlier, with some speculating that Carmody himself killed her. Fernanda is Beelzebub, or the “Lord of the Flies.” She could be a demon, or the demon since that’s another name for Satan, too. Fernanda seeks to bring Nyssa into her world, but of course, all of the witches present, and Carmody, want to prevent that from happening. Most end up dying in the struggle.
Along the way with this struggle, we learn two things: one of the witches has been embezzling from Carmody, and Kaster is actually an ancient wizard who has been around for more than 2,000 years. Essentially, many of the rich people of the world have “sponsors” like him who try to steer them in the correct ways of the world, but humans are greedy and want more, like Carmody, so, they make poor choices, like not burning down Jericho and its evil spirits with it.
Lauren was such a great protagonist because she’s the kind of protagonist you want in a fantasy-horror book: she’s willing to get into the thick of things, even if it means sacrificing her life for the life of someone else, like Nyssa. Lauren also is a classic fantasy protagonist because she engenders jealousy and barely-veiled disdain from the other witches because she wasn’t classically trained, if you will, like they were. Instead, she discovered late in her 20s that she’s a witch and has tremendous power, like being able to cross through walls, if necessary. But again, like any great fantasy protagonist, her power isn’t in her literal power, but the power of her heart and selflessness. To save Nyssa and rid our world of Beelzebub, she’s willing to sacrifice herself within the bowels of Jericho while the other witches establish their wards. Instead, Nyssa ends up sacrificing herself to quiet the voices in her head as a budding witch herself.
I have nowhere else to insert this, but I thought for sure Lauren and Jenny, who ends up being more than a mere side character, were going to form a relationship. They just had nice chemistry! Alas, maybe in a third book …
The end of Jericho does indeed tease a third book in the Lauren Reardon series, even though Gordon hasn’t written another one yet, where Lauren would basically be on a rapid response strike team of witches who respond to otherworldly flares up, like Jericho and previously, Gideon. I’d love to read that book! (I also need to go back and read the first in the series, Gideon.)
Overall, if you’re a fan of fantasy and horror, I think you’d enjoy this book. Gordon doesn’t have to flip the script on witchcraft and witches to tell a compelling, smartly-written, and fun story. In her hands, witchcraft and witches feels fresh and new, and like it can fit within 2016. Hopefully she does write that third book. I won’t a cast a spell about that, though. No pressure.
Milam's Musings 