Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into a very interesting dark fantasy novel called Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom. Slewfoot is a twisty and horrifying tale that was really unlike any other book I’ve checked out before.

* Some Warnings For Future Readers *

– Includes murder

– Includes torture and specifically old-age torture tactics

Main Characters:

• Abitha: A young widow living in Colonial times trying to keep her farm running without her husband, due to living in a small very religious village is met with a lot of struggles for trying to do it on her own and seeks out other means to help her
• Wallace: Is Edwards (Abitha’s husband) brother, after his passing will stop at nothing to try to get the family farm back from Abitha, and uses methods to try to turn the village against her
• Reverend Carter: While being the strict Reverend of a very religious village is still a kind and reasonable man, seems to have a lot of heart for Abitha after Edwards’ passing and just wants to see her succeed despite being a woman running her own farm which is unheard of in that time
• Samson: Is a difficult creature who is seen as many things, the Christians would call him the devil, his children father, and to the woods is a slayer and protector, finds connection in an unlikely human and starts to question who he really is
• Forest, Creek, and Sky: Samson’s children also known as the Wildfolk, worry that Abitha may be distracting their father from his true mission

My Review

I feel like the only descriptor I have to start this off for Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom is weird. Weird in a good way though, but dang this book was just so strange and interesting. When originally adding the book to my list I thought that the fantasy part of the book extended to just the bewitchery of it all, but it’s so much more than just about witches. Don’t get me wrong this book is plenty creepy and dark, but it wasn’t as horror-forward as I was expecting it to be. I’d be curious to know if others found the horror element stronger in the book than I did because sometimes I think I am a bit numb to some of that stuff. I will say the torture scenes in the book were really tough, and if anything I would say that this had maybe the most horror-heavy parts to it. There were some creepy parts here and there, but really I found the fantasy element of the book to be the strongest.

I struggled a lot with deciding what to rate Slewfoot because I genuinely did enjoy the book a lot, but there were some really slow parts and parts that personally I felt like the book didn’t need. I landed on giving it a 7.5/10.

As the title may ensue Slewfoot follows a tale of bewitchery, but not in the way it’s classically presented. When Abitha loses her husband to a freak accident she is left to try to fend for herself on their farm. She is met with an array of struggles because she’s a widow in Colonial times, living in a very religious village. So, essentially being a woman at this time and trying to do this is a big no-no in the townspeople’s eyes. Furthermore, her husband’s brother Wallace is determined to get his family’s farm back into his hands. After a challenging dispute with Abitha, the village Reverend mediates, it is determined that if Abitha can’t upkeep the rent for the farm it will go back into Wallace’s hands, and she will become a maid for him so that she can *cue an eye roll* live out her widow days in what he says is a good situation. Wallace is a vile man who does not want his sister-in-law to succeed at all. Abitha accepts Wallace’s terms not understanding what she gets herself into. When Abitha realizes she can’t run their farm by herself she finds that the miracle she is looking for may just find her.

To describe Samson and his children Forest, Creek, and Sky is a difficult one. They are more what I would describe as spiritual characters of sorts, in which their existence even seems to be a mystery to them. You really have to read the book to get a full understanding of it, but to try and break it down it seems that Samson is a ruler of the woods in a way. While throughout the book he’s often called a devil by other people, I didn’t get a sense that he came from hell, rather he’s always been a part of the planet. That being said there is this devilish part to him. For Samson to gain strength he needs to drink blood and feed off of the life of another. It seems like with this he also feeds to tree with his strength or gets strength from it (I am not totally sure I got a bit lost when it came to the lore parts) that provides magic for him and his children. The more strength they have the more they can restore this tree that gives them control over the woods. When Samson is awoken by his children from a long sleep he finds that he is drawn to a specific woman who has an effect on him. When he awakes Samson doesn’t have all of his memories and doesn’t totally know who he is. While his children claim him to be a violent being who will stop at nothing to protect what he sees as his, something makes him feel like there is more to him.

When Abitha connects with Samson she starts to connect to a spiritual side of herself that she never knew was there. Through different events, Abitha is claimed to be a witch by the village she lives in and some different events unravel. The book really picks up in the second half from what is a much slower start. As I said before there were some parts to the book that I didn’t really enjoy. There are a few different chunks of the book that go into explaining the lore of Samson, and while I enjoyed some of these parts I found some of them to be really boring. There were definitely some parts of his back story that were needed to explain how things went in the book, but there were some parts that just felt like filler to me. This very much maybe my thing, but any parts of the book that didn’t involve Abitha I didn’t enjoy as much. She was just such an interesting character and one I wanted to follow the whole time and know what was going to happen next. She was also just such a badass and I loved what a powerful character she was.

Overall a fascinating read. I would definitely recommend this one if you enjoy historical fantasies that are filled with lots of dark themes and topics. With really interesting characters and a unique plot, this book is really unlike any other I’ve ever read. This is definitely a book you have to take your time with trying to understand all the different working parts to it, but if you do it, it’s definitely worth it.

I hope you enjoyed this review! Have you checked out Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom before? What did you think?

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