Motheater

No cover — Linda Codega: Motheater (Hardcover, 2025, Erewhon Books)

Hardcover, 405 pages

English language

Published Jan. 1, 2025 by Erewhon Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-64566-179-5
Goodreads:: 211960914

In a startling and nuanced queer fantasy set amid the beauty of an Appalachian mountain, the last witch of the Ridge and a newcomer investigating the coal industry must choose sides in a clash between nature and development that’s been 300 years coming…

After her best friend died in the coal mine that employs half of Kiron, Virginia, Benethea Mattox sacrificed her job, her relationship, and her reputation trying to uncover what’s killing miners on Kire Mountain. When she finds a half-drowned white woman in the dirty mine slough, Bennie takes her in because it’s right—but she also hopes this odd, magnetic stranger can lead her to the proof she needs.

Instead, she brings more questions. The woman called Motheater can’t remember her true name, nor how she ended up inside the mountain. She knows only that she’s a witch of Appalachia, bound to tor and holler, possum …

In a startling and nuanced queer fantasy set amid the beauty of an Appalachian mountain, the last witch of the Ridge and a newcomer investigating the coal industry must choose sides in a clash between nature and development that’s been 300 years coming…

After her best friend died in the coal mine that employs half of Kiron, Virginia, Benethea Mattox sacrificed her job, her relationship, and her reputation trying to uncover what’s killing miners on Kire Mountain. When she finds a half-drowned white woman in the dirty mine slough, Bennie takes her in because it’s right—but she also hopes this odd, magnetic stranger can lead her to the proof she needs.

Instead, she brings more questions. The woman called Motheater can’t remember her true name, nor how she ended up inside the mountain. She knows only that she’s a witch of Appalachia, bound to tor and holler, possum and snake, with power in her hands and Scripture on her tongue. But the mystery of her fate, her doomed quest to keep industry off Kire, and the promises she bent and broke have followed her 150 years into the future. And now, the choices Motheater and Bennie make together could change the face of Kire itself…

2 editions

Lady Aranea reviewed Motheater by Linda Codega

Excellent worldbuilding. Disappointing conclusion.

3 stars

Motheater is a modern fantasy set in the Appalachian mountains against the backdrop of a small coal-mining town. A white witch, born shortly after the Civil War (the Brother's War, she calls it) awakens in the modern day, having been found washing downstream by Benethea, a Black woman, who is investigating a series of disappearances in the local mine starting in the nineties. The two develop a tense friendship that nearly teeters into romance as they seek to reclaim Motheater's memories and address the issues with the mine, with the help of Bennie's ex-boyfriend, Zack Gresham, who works at the mine. The world-building is top notch (the way magic works is so fucking cool), and the pacing is mostly very good (it's slow at the start). The emotional tone is all over the place, from defiance in the face of overwhelming odds to sapphic yearning to grim resignation and determination.

…

Motheater is a modern fantasy set in the Appalachian mountains against the backdrop of a small coal-mining town. A white witch, born shortly after the Civil War (the Brother's War, she calls it) awakens in the modern day, having been found washing downstream by Benethea, a Black woman, who is investigating a series of disappearances in the local mine starting in the nineties. The two develop a tense friendship that nearly teeters into romance as they seek to reclaim Motheater's memories and address the issues with the mine, with the help of Bennie's ex-boyfriend, Zack Gresham, who works at the mine. The world-building is top notch (the way magic works is so fucking cool), and the pacing is mostly very good (it's slow at the start). The emotional tone is all over the place, from defiance in the face of overwhelming odds to sapphic yearning to grim resignation and determination.

My primary criticisms are that we never see any description of what Bennie looks like (literally everyone else is described, including extras in historical views), and I would have given it a different ending.

enne📚 reviewed Motheater by Linda Codega

3 stars

I wanted to like this queer witchy Appalachian book a lot more than I ended up enjoying it. The setup is that Benethea Mattox has sacrificed everything to find out why her friend mysteriously died in a mining accident; she rescues a mysterious woman from a river, who turns out to be a hundred plus year old witch with her own vendetta.

The perspective of the book alternates between Bennie in the present and Motheater in the past. What doesn't work for me is that most of the interesting tension happens in the past; Bennie's own agency and mystery solving in the present is largely subsumed in service to helping Motheater with her own plot.

One interesting observation is that I read the conflict as being between protecting the people vs protecting the land. Motheater wants to provide for her people but is competing with the growing needs …

I wanted to like this queer witchy Appalachian book a lot more than I ended up enjoying it. The setup is that Benethea Mattox has sacrificed everything to find out why her friend mysteriously died in a mining accident; she rescues a mysterious woman from a river, who turns out to be a hundred plus year old witch with her own vendetta.

The perspective of the book alternates between Bennie in the present and Motheater in the past. What doesn't work for me is that most of the interesting tension happens in the past; Bennie's own agency and mystery solving in the present is largely subsumed in service to helping Motheater with her own plot.

One interesting observation is that I read the conflict as being between protecting the people vs protecting the land. Motheater wants to provide for her people but is competing with the growing needs and desires of her town that lead them to increased mining, either on their own or through a company. Surprisingly, this turned out to be much less than I expected about mining companies exploiting people than it was about mining generally hurting the environment.