Review: The Witch of Willow Sound, by Vanessa F. Penney
The Witch of Willow Sound
Vanessa F. Penney
320 pages
Release: September 30, 2025
ISBN 9781770418424
Publisher: ECW Press
Vanessa F. Penney is a bit of a mystery: a debut author, born in northern Newfoundland, raised in rural Nova Scotia, there is next to no information about her beyond those spare facts. There is no website about her. Her publisher has little beyond that information but for a photograph. This is intriguing. As is her debut novel, The Witch of Willow Sound.
But first, the marketing blurb:
Madeline is missing. Ordered to find her, Madeline’s estranged niece, Fade, must return to the lonely forest of Willow Sound, Nova Scotia. There, Fade discovers her aunt’s once-cozy cottage empty and rotting. The ominous smell of something burnt hangs in the air.
In her search for answers, Fade clashes with the people of Grand Tea, a nearby village struggling under the shadow of a massive, looming rock that could tip and crush them all at any time. For generations, they’ve invented bizarre lore about Madeline, calling her a witch and blaming her for their misfortunes. They’ve had more misfortunes than ever lately. And a hurricane is coming.
Inspired by real East Coast traditions and witch lore, The Witch of Willow Sound is a modern gothic tale that explores family lost and found and throws firelight on dark truths about what societies do with the people, and the past, they don’t want.
And that is an accurate description of not only the novel, but what Penney achieves in her narrative.
This was another rare treat for me as a reviewer and reader, in that from that first opening line to the very satisfying end, I was captivated by very intimately-drawn characters through a well-controlled point of view, by environmental descriptions which were believable and accurate, and by world-building that very much quieted my inner editor and kept me reading. In fact, Penney kept me reading until 3:00 of the blessed AM through quiet tears in the end. Well done, Vanessa F. Penney!
So, why did this novel have such impact? The answer to that is both simple and complex. The simple answer is that Penney is one hell of a good storyteller. The complex answer is that Penney understands intimately the craft of writing fiction, of good research, of creating a story which, while most definitely genre fiction, moves beyond genre by exploring believably and credibly a history, the interweaving of relationships, of the effect of willful ignorance upon those who don’t conform to rigid, closed-societal standards. In other words, she takes the real world and deftly drops it into the fantastic.
This is also very much a resonant and prevalent voice of Canada’s East Coast which has a long and storied history.
In style, I was often reminded of some of the remarkable work of Charles de Lint, how he slides the fantastic into the every day. Vanessa F. Penney has that same skill. And I do believe Penney has the ability to become another Canadian star.
Very highly recommended.