The Magickal Summer of Evie Edelman by Harriett de Mesquita (spoilers in review)

✦ BLURB ✦

People at Synagogue say she is weird. A psychiatrist says she has Asperger’s. But Evie knows she is a witch.

Leeds, England 1982. After the sudden death of her eccentric aunt Mim, Evie Edelman is left with a sizeable fortune, a yellow Alpine Sunbeam and a chihuahua named Peggy. Seizing her chance at independence, she escapes the claustrophobia of her parents’ house and the disapproval of her tight-knit Jewish community and moves to the country to practice her true calling: witchcraft.

But trouble follows Evie in the form of her first-love Alex, and property developer Malcolm who just might be Satan himself. As Evie finds herself increasingly torn between magick and reality, and the past and present, rumours begin flying about what exactly a single young woman is doing in a remote village on her own. Soon, Evie starts to wonder whether she is always destined to be misunderstood – and if she will ever figure out who she truly is.

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✶ PRE-READING ✶

Love a book about witchcraft! And setting it in 1982, when such things were much less accepted and out in the open, was a brave choice. Evie is part of the English Jewish community, which is not a community I know much about, so that was interesting as well. As far as I can tell this is Harriett's first book, and it's always fun to see an author just starting out and guess at what they might do in the future.

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✶ POST-READING ✶

As I thought, the Jewish setting was interesting, although Evie isn't particularly observant. It was surprisingly odd reading something set relatively close in time, but separated by a technological gulf - you don't really realise how much has changed in the last forty years! I liked that Evie wasn't a hippy dippy, good vibes character - she researched rituals and the meanings of plants and other items and used them all correctly.

It surprised me by giving the main character Aspergers, now folded into Autism, without hinting at it on the blurb. The book is presented as Evie's diary and it tends to ramble a bit, with side thoughts and digressions and moving around in time, though the general movement is forward. It occasionally felt like Harriett had a checklist of Asperger's symptoms and was throwing each one in turn at the wall to see what would stick, although I have to be fair and say that I was reading a proof, so the transitions will likely be much smoother in the final edition.

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✦ RECOMMENDATIONS ✦

Book: The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh – Like Evie Edelman, it follows a misunderstood young woman navigating independence, identity, and a deeply personal connection to nature. Both books use the symbolism of plants in meaningful ways.
TV or Movie: Fleabag – While tonally more comedic and raw, both stories follow complicated, isolated women trying to find peace in a world that doesn't quite understand them. The inner voice, awkward moments, and questioning of one's reality in Evie Edelman would sit well with Fleabag fans.

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✧ VIBE CHECK ✧

Colour palette: Chaotic bursts of colour overlapping each other – lipstick reds, mustard yellows, indigo blues clashing and settling.

Soundtrack: Frantic, clashing sounds, lots of strings and drums. Think Kate Bush with a fever.

Season: Late summer – the wild edges, the turning of the year just starting to creep in.

Mood: Stubborn, electric, a little jagged around the edges.

Scent: Old perfume bottles on a cluttered windowsill - floral, resinous, dusty with age and power.

★ TAROT CARD PULLED ★

The Moon. Soul Cats Tarot. A cat sits in front of a full moon, its body half-lit and half in shadow. Two charms hang from its collar: a dog or wolf and a crayfish - classic symbols of the Moon card’s confusion, duality, and hidden truths. This card fits the book perfectly: the feeling of seeing only part of the truth, of struggling to distinguish reality from illusion, and of following intuition through uncertainty. The use of a cat in place of the traditional canines also reflects Evie’s independence, mystery, and nonconformity.