The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland

Three girls, one supernatural killer on the loose . . .

Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to consider—that her murdered sister is gone forever and there is nothing she can do about it. Rather than grieving and moving on, Zara decides she will do whatever it takes to claw her sister back from the grave—even trading in the occult.

Jude Wolf may be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. After a deal with a demon went horribly wrong, her soul has been slowly turning necrotic. It’s a miserable existence marred by pain, sickness, and monstrous things that taunt her in the night. Now that she’s glimpsed what’s beyond the veil, Jude’s desperate to find someone to undo the damage she’s done to herself.

Enter Emer Byrne, an orphaned witch with a dark past and a deadly power, a.k.a. the solution to both Zara’s and Jude’s problems. Though Emer lives a hardscrabble life, she gives away her most valuable asset—her invocations—to women in desperate situations who are willing to sacrifice a piece of their soul in exchange for a scrap of power. Zara and Jude are willing, but they first have to find Emer.

When Emer’s clients start turning up dead all over London, a vital clue leads Zara and Jude right to her. If a serial killer is targeting her clients, Emer wants to know why—and to stop them. She strikes a tenuous alliance with Zara and Jude to hunt a killer before they are next on his list, even if she can’t give them in return what Zara and Jude want most: a sister and a soul.

I absolutely adored House of Hollow, an eerie dark fairytale by Krystal Sutherland that took off a few years ago. I reread it recently (last year) and relished the language and the atmosphere that the diction created. It was stunning but decayed: rotted florals, aged beauty, and the like. Decadent and slightly off.

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The mood worked remarkably well for the storyline—sisters who'd disappeared one night years ago in Edinburgh only to mysteriously reappear months later, unable to tell anyone what'd happened. Now, years later, the girls have this unearthly feel to them that attracts and repels others in equal turn. When one of them (the eldest) disappears, the younger sisters have to team up to figure out what exactly happened all those years ago to get their sister back.

House of Hollow is a lush urban fantasy that veers expertly into horror at the right times, almost like an old Brothers Grimm story. Plenty of consequences. What I loved most about it — beyond the striking atmosphere, always my main pro — was how effortlessly it balanced references to modern convenience (like the mom tracking her daughter's location when on a run) with this timeless, folky, dark feel. The eldest sister, for example, sewed animal bones and hidden messages into her clothes, and her followers worshipped her for it as an eldritch influencer of sorts—which feels pretty close to reality, and helped emphasize the blurriness of the supernatural/reality line that makes the storyline so rich.

Anyway, lest I veer too much into chatting about her previous book I clearly adore, I was eager to dive into Sutherland's latest, which released earlier this year: The Invocations.

I honestly didn't even look at the plot before requesting it as a library hold, and thanked my lucky stars when the book reappeared on my shelf in early October — when I was in Dublin, even. I didn't have much of an opportunity to prime myself for Halloween this year (pumpkin bread, Hocus Pocus, the whole shebang) between travels and work, so just needed one spooky read to knock it out of the park. And The Invocations delivered!

PLOT

The Invocations starts out on Halloween night (oooooh) following a girl walking home late at night. When she notices a man beginning to follow her, she'd normally feel afraid; she was caught unawares on a night very much like this one. But she's powerful now—a witch—and he should be afraid instead. But then he reappears in front of her, and she feels real fear. There's something wrong about him.

Skip to the modern day. The Invocations follows three main characters.

Ember, the orphan who makes her living studying curses and invocations that bind demons to women through "invocations" — they essentially sell part of their soul for the ability to possess a specific magic. She's ducking in and out of Oxford facilities, pretending to be a student in order to sit in on foreign language classes and feed herself, etc,. Biding her time.

The next is Zara, who used to be brilliant (bound for the highest of academics, callings, etc,.) and was going to claw her and her sister out of a bad living situation. It was just them—until her older sister showed up murdered after a bad fight between the two of them. Now, she's determined to find a way to raise her sister from the dead.

Then comes Jude, the abandoned daughter of a billionaire. Her family claims she was a drug addict, and shut her up in a decrepit old house in London. But Jude knows it wasn't drugs; instead, she incorrectly wrote her own invocation and mistakenly bound a demon to her in the wrong way—and is rotting from the inside out. The pain, the body horror, the punishment. She gets thrown around the walls and basically destroyed from the inside out in random flashes of (possession? practically.) She's hunting for a witch who can help her break the bond.

The girls collide as more murdered girls (witches) appear around London: each part of Emer's clientele.

CHARACTERS & RELATIONSHIPS

I really appreciate a quality in books I call character specificity, because I do think it's hard for writers to summon. I love when someone has a precise constellation of quirks, mannerisms, dialogue, and more that is so true to them that it makes them feel like distinctive, human presences (and in my opinion, drive the book.) Certain writers do this better than others, and those authors tend to be my favorites in making stories feel vivid and compelling: Maggie Stiefvater, Melissa Albert, Brittany Cavallaro. Give me specificity, every time.

While I'm not sure I picked up on this in House of Hollow, The Invocations means I'll absolutely have to add Krystal Sutherland to this list of character-building greats. Each of the girls had flaws that contrasted with the others' needs and desires. They each felt raw in many ways and desperate in their connection with each other. I found Jude's bluntness refreshing, Zara's ambition relatable (minus the whole necromancy bit), and Emer's scrappiness admirable. (In fact, Emer actually reminded me of the narrator from Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott, which is a horrifying yet powerful contemporary about the kidnapped, assaulted victim living with her captor throughout her teenage years.) It was very show-not-tell with how each person operated, which I loved. Again, I wasn't sure whether House of Hollow had this too or whether Krystal Sutherland has gotten significantly better at craft over the past few years to a noticeable extent, but I just thought it was excellent.

Each of the girls make stupid choices at times of course, but hey—there wouldn't be a story otherwise. Their relationships to each other made sense, and their motivations continually aligned with who they were built out to be. Out of the three, Zara felt the least consistent to me, especially when new information would illuminate details about her sister; some of her choices near the end felt unnecessary and like they didn't fully align with her philosophies.

PACING

Now, where I absolutely loved The Invocations was in how it continually darkened and intensified: a characteristic of a thriller that can completely consume me. Now, it definitely got dark for this reason at the end—which I'll touch on below—but it didn't feel like it went too hard, either. Instead, each action intensified the consequences waiting for the characters at the end. It did veer into classic horror, genre-wise, with how grisly the consequences were, and it wasn't afraid to "get its hands dirty."

I never really lost interest, and I definitely had some major red-herring moments of dread and anticipation waiting for everything to unfold. Towards the end, I was speeding through the pages, which is largely what I want from a spooky-season read.

WORLDBUILDING

I appreciated the logic surrounding how the invocations and exchange of power physically worked. The lore behind the witches and their demonic connections made a lot of sense, and was clearly explained. I'm writing this review a few weeks after reading and I'm trying to remember if there's a point that lost or confused me, but I can't remember one. Instead, certain images are crystallized in my head: the sign of a book that's at the very least distinctive.

Now, y'all know I'm a Maggie Stiefvater fangirl. She can do no wrong for me. But Call Down the Hawk, the trilogy centered on Ronan and Adam, failed to grab me in a lot of ways despite being creative (and as always, rendered in stunning prose.) Jude's storyline in The Invocations reminded me a lot of Jordan Hennessey's from that book—but with a lot more grounding details and lore that made it feel much more fleshed out. Jude's curse was painful and grotesque, and Sutherland never shied away from sharing details that made it clear how awful and gut-wrenching this curse actually was to bear.

THE BODY HORROR

I am a horror fan, but I do not like body horror. I like atmosphere; I like demons and metaphors and creaking houses with my heart in my throat. Give me a The Haunting of Hill House-type meditation on what it means to be "haunted" rather than a slasher, every time. Frankly, I threw up after reading American Psycho in high school. I find a lot of body horror-style violence gratuitous rather than campy or meaningful.

So when The Invocations really started getting into the body horror, I was concerned. Let's just say the leaking walls of Jude's house, her necrotic leg, Zara's reflections on her decaying sister...could have done without. Still, it all worked for the specific vibe that Sutherland curated in this book versus House of Hollow. The magic was all very tangible and embodied, versus the dark fairytale-style ethereality of her other. For that reason, I appreciated her range: how her language maintained this graceful, moodily elegant quality that will define her stories but that her specific atmospheric choices diverged enough to make it clear that The Invocations was its own separate story world. It was impressive.

The ending of this one is...a lot. There is a lot of death and violence. There are descriptions I wanted to shy away from, and choices that go far into establishing characters' moral codes (to say the least.) But, I would normally hate a book for doing what The Invocations did, and decide it wasn't for me. But somehow...I thought The Invocations did such an incredible job justifying, setting up, and making the violence inevitable that I didn't have as much of a problem with the body horror. In fact, I respected it.

So if you're like me and really don't like when language and character choices start getting gross, you may find that The Invocations is a nice "yellow zone" challenge to get you out of your area of comfort without making you want to hurl. I'd be curious to talk to other readers who have similar tastes.

THE WRITING

Overall, I loved this book for its prose. While I can always hang with a great story, my favorite books are those that so colorfully transport me that they have a dreamlike, specific flavor I'll never be able to find in anything else. The Invocations was like that, and it hit perfectly for 1) the mood I was in and 2) my cravings for the time of year.

I can't think of any specific lines that majorly struck me, but I could tell I loved the writing because I actually spiraled into a small bit of despair at one point because I was so horribly jealous of her writing. There were definitely moments, observations, and details that I wished I had written, and it felt like a major level upgrade in craft that many writers (for this genre, at least) haven't hit yet.

It did feel heavy-handed in terms of themes, however. The "men are evil" thread reminded me so much of how over-the-top it was in Sawkill Girls (another horror-leaning favorite) that some moments ceased to have impact—or would have been more effective with a healthy dose of subtlety. Still, the angle made sense for the book itself, and I loved that each of the witches who sought power from Emer were doing so to regain power against men who had wronged them.

OVERALL

The Invocations was my style in that it was gloomy and all-in and gorgeously written. It was not my style in that it was graphic, dark (character-wise), and definitely got stomach-churning at the end. Still, I respected its decision-making because the aggressiveness of the detail felt earned rather than like it was there for cheap shock value. I still wouldn't say I'm enticed to read more body horror, but if anyone could make it okay, it would be Krystal Sutherland.

It's very centered around female rage and misogyny as an undercurrent thread, so fair warning to take the themes with a grain of salt. Some felt exaggerated for style and impact, which is a creative angle that certainly made a lot of sense (and you're not reading it for exact-to-life realism anyway.)

I loved the creativity and clarity of the witch-and-demon lore, and felt like the invocations twist was both refreshing enough to feel bold but familiar enough to follow along with easily. Overall, I'd recommend to spooky readers, but perhaps prepare to put down should it be "too much" for you.

For fans of:

The Fall of the House of Usher (TV); Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand; The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert; House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland (of course); Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater; Carrie by Stephen King.