Jilo (Witching Savannah #4) by J.D. Horn

  

I’ve liked Jilo as a major character in the Witching Savannah Series as a powerful and clearly complex figure. She has awesome potential and we have a lot of allusions to a long and complex history. The problem is that this series is not about her, it was all about Mercy. Jilo’s relationship with Mercy has been very complex but, on the whole, it has been one of mentor and student. Or an almost maternal relationship. There are times when Jilo even refers to herself as Mercy’s mother figure

Of course, that’s a trope. It’s certainly a trope with an elderly Black woman with a young white lady in Savannah.

That made this book extremely necessary. It’s a book that focuses not just entirely on Jilo’s history but also on her family history and her magic as well. I think that’s extremely necessary because Mercy’s family has also been very much about her family history and the importance and uniqueness of her magic. By talking about Jilo’s family and relationship with magic we put her on an equal level of importance and value as Mercy

It also allows a wonderful expansion of the world building with us seeing magical systems and sources beyond Mercy’s family’s relationship with the Line and the Old Ones – and it’s equally as powerful while being completely different. Jilo’s family’s relationship with the Beekeeper and the old powers is only tangentially created related to the kind of magic that Mercy’s family practices. This shows there is magic beyond Mercy’s magic and that there are magical struggles and storylines that do not involve them. This is not Jilo playing a part in Mercy’ storyline. This is not Jilo living a lesser for of Mercy’s storyline. This is Jilo having an entirely separate magical storyline which doesn’t involve the Taylor family at all

Jilo’s family history goes back 3 generations – and it goes back 3 generations of Black people in Savannah, following them through the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and onwards. While this includes a lot of fascinating insight into the magical system and the desperate struggle each generation has faced to try and turn away from magic but inevitably be drawn back, it is equally a story of race in America and it permeates every element of the family’s story including the supernatural elements

We have rich white sorcerers who feel entitled to Jilo’s family’s magic and service, who constantly exploit and use them every generation and get away with it due to their wealth and race and power. As antagonists they are inherently people who force Jilo’s family to turn to magic time and again because in a system that makes them so vulnerable how else can the possibly protect themselves?

While that’s a common driving force for them seeking magic or being forced to resort to magic so is the simple realities of living in a racist, segregated time. The magic they have to turn to too survive not just against threats – but also economically. There’s Jilo’s grandmother, raising 4 young girls and increasingly too old to perform the hard physical labour of cleaning – magic, despite all her misgivings, provides an income when she has few other options.

That’s a definite part of Jilo’s own storyline that is defined by this. A single mother with no income and no chance to use her education. And she had an education and brilliant ambitions – but not chance to become the doctor she dreamed as a Black woman (flatly told that there were very few chances for Black doctors – and those choices should go to Black men who can actually help their community). Even her accent that seemed so stereotypical in the main books is revealed to be creation, along with the whole persona of “Mother Jilo”. In all, Jilo is a brilliant woman from a line of brilliant women – intelligent, wise, capable and determined – facing insurmountable obstacles and carrying on.

I also like that while race permeates their story, it isn’t the only obstacles they have faced, and it’s above and beyond the magical obstacles they face. They have both economic hurdles and even as simple as Jilo’s terrible terrible taste in men who have used her and failed her and exploited her time and time again. Jilo has led a hard life, not just from magic and not just from being Black but also from being a Black woman and with more than a few men willing to use her. Including these excellent lines when a man asks if Jilo’s child is his:

“Is he yours? Have you fed him? Have you clothed him? Made sure he had a roof over his head?”

Honestly I would have to spoil so much to cover the many excellent points this book made – from the pregnant young women who sought Jilo’s grandmother’s support to challenging Jilo’s attitude towards other women’s ambitions to Jilo’s own mother’s complicated life and career when she passes as a white woman.

The plot waits until the very end of the book to start to link Jilo’s story to that of the Taylor’s doing a really good job of making sure Jilo’s story is distinct – but also not completely alien to the rest of the books to an extent that it feels like a completely separate world setting.

And when she does interact with Ginny there’s some excellent challenge of Ginny’s well-meaning-but-deeply-flawed attempts to understand racism and Jilo.

There is a trans character – or so it seems – Willy describes herself as wanting to be a woman and wearing woman’s clothes. She naturally faces a great deal of bigotry, including from Jilo to begin with before she recognises Willy as family and is willing to champion her (while Willy clearly views herself as female, everyone continues to use male pronouns to refer to her). Jilo’s support helps dispel the depiction of bigotry and challenge it – but it doesn’t change the depiction of Willy. I am still unsure whether Willy is developmentally disabled or not as everyone treats her as a child. I never really got the sense of her as a real person so much as a burden to protect and pity. It made her less of a character and more of a plot device.

This was a book that was very much needed – not just to avert the terrible mammy stereotype that had dogged Jilo from the beginning but also to truly expand the world and plot line of one of its most important characters. It added a lot to the overall storyline and was an excellent read.

The Void (Witching Savannah #3) by J.D. Horn

Mercy doesn’t have time to focus on her pregnancy – not with the ongoing hostility of the Anchors, the return of her highly dangerous sister and the plotting of an ancient and terrifying witch, danger abounds

But so do revelations – both from the family’s darker past as well as about the very nature of the line, of magic, of the fae and of her husband – there’s a lot of Mercy to take in and all of it has dire consequences for her family. And for her child.

The book almost confuses me, or, rather my reactions confuse me. In some ways, I think that the story is almost too convenient and too full. Like Peter – what happens to him and how he leaves the story. Or Maddy and, after so much emotional turmoil then handing over such a perfect solution to resolve the issues her presence raised. Or the conflict Jessamine rose, again settled very neatly

And the ending itself, a wonderful convenient way of resolving just about everything and all conflicts.

However, maybe this is just because I’m so used to unresolved plot lines being left hanging for book after book after book that I can’t even see a closed, resolved storyline without thinking it’s somehow convoluted or simplistic. Because each one of these storylines came with either an excellent advancement of the world setting, some great emotional development or some excellent emotional questioning

Like the introduction of Jessamine led to the whole development of Gehenna, the introduction of the idea of magical constructs creating and maintaining the world as well as a whole lot of family history disrupting a lot of Taylor sacred assumptions (I can’t say I could empathise with any of them myself as I’m not sure I would have cared as much about their outrage but then I don’t have the same sense of family history and family name that they do).

The Source (Witching Savannah #2) by J.D. Horn

Mercy is now the family’s Anchor and technically in charge of the magic of her family and one of the most powerful witches in the world. If the other Anchors would let her be. Hemmed in, limited, constantly spied on to say nothing of her struggle for control, Mercy isn’t finding power particularly easy to live with – especially since all that power cannot be used to find her lost sister

Her fragile world is further thrown into disarray with the return of her mother – who she thought dead in child birth. Her mother has an entirely different story not just of her death and her family but of the origins of magic herself. Mercy, who knows all too well that her family can and does lie to her, now has to try and find the truth between the competing sides and the reality of magic itself – knowing whichever side she chooses will mean losing family.

Throughout a lot of this book we’re left very much in doubt about who to trust, who to support and what the truth is.

A lot of books trey to create this – and usually fail pretty badly. Usually it’s very clear which person is actually the bad guy and while the protagonist may trust them, it’s usually while the reader yells “noooo what are you doing?!”

But both the first book and this book has done an excellent job of continuing that uncertainty and leaving us never sure which character can be trusted. Not because they’re all evil – but because they’re all very human and very flawed. They have their own foibles, they have their own weaknesses, they have their own problems, their own agendas their own values. From Oliver’s light, often self-centredness and casual manipulation to Iris and Ellen with their own tumultuous love lives all overshadowed by loyalty to the Line that permeates the families and makes them make rather extreme decisions if they begin to think the line is under threat.

And the Line itself adds a whole new level of complexity and uncertainty. We have the “official” version of what the line is – of the barrier that keeps the demons at bay that would enslave them all as they have in the past. But that is the official version, the Anchor’s version – a version that suits them well and empowers them. A version pushed by Ginny who we know was deceptive and dangerous and manipulative and certainly didn’t have Mercy’s best interests at heart.  But there are rebel families – it seems rather unlikely that the rebel families aren’t fighting for the eager chance to be slaves – so an alternate narrative seems likely, especially since those Anchors love their secrecy.

This is even more complicated by the witches even acting in the best of faith simply not understanding the true nature of the line or the world they’re in – which, in turn, makes them potential antagonists towards Mercy.

The Line (Witching Savannah #1) by J.D. Horn

Mercy Taylor is the one member of her infamous Savannah family who was born without magic – somewhat unusual since her family is one of the few worldwide who protect and maintain the Line. The source of magic in the world.

But she can deal with that, she has all her life. A little more difficult is dealing with her growing feelings for her sister’s boyfriend – and the temptation of forbidden magic to deal with that little problem.

Even that pales when Ginny, the cruel and dominating family matriarch and holder of the Line, is brutally murdered. What could possibly have killed a woman of such power – and what will be the aftermath as a new guardian is chosen?

Oh this book has intrigued me. I love that feeling when I pick up a book and I can feel the depth of the history behind it. When I know the author has created a world setting, storyline and cast of characters so large and adaptable that they could probably write dozens of stories in it without having to expand beyond what they have already established in their own head – and I can feel all that with only the tiniest crumb of it being revealed.

The history and nature of magic, the old class divide when the demons where in charge, the demons and shadow entities themselves, the founding of the original families, the rebels, the anchor of the line, the different magic specialties, the sprawling side families even the prophecy all comes together to hint at a vastness that could go on and on.

In some ways, the depth and complexity of this world has a problem because not everything was explained. The magic system is complicated, but the history of magic, the origin of witches and the line is explained – but then we’ve got demons and dark-outsider-spectre-demonish-figures and a strange evil hospital and rogue families and prophecies and different dimensions… towards the end I kind of wished that some of these had been expanded more or there’d been some kind of guide. Or perhaps another book in the series to help me get a solid hold on what exactly happened

Especially since this is a book that relies on twists. Twist, twist and revelation and twist! Secrets coming back from the past, long injustices and everyone – absolutely everyone – lying over and over again. And even when you find them out they turn out to be lying about the revelation! It’s mystery on mystery with big reveal after big reveal. It’s generally excellently well done and there’s a whole lot I never predicted or imagined but I just wish more had been added in so I could follow these twists

I’m also very impressed with the characterisation. All of these characters were developed and deep – not perfect, by any means. But they’re not meant to be perfect – they have their flaws and their rough spots – because they have their histories. These are characters who have lived – and it feels like they’ve lived.

There are a number of complex, flawed and interesting women. While Ginny and Maisy are not deep, there’s an attempt to explain why they are the way they are. Mercy’s aunts are kind, gentle and flawed women – including one struggling with alcoholism but still being far more than just an alcoholic. Being an alcoholic definitely shapes her character but it isn’t the entirety of her character anyway. Even her deceased mother is given the same flawed-but-understanding treatment, the revelations about her both condemnatory but also forgiving and understanding when it would have been far easier to go for a full on shaming.