We Call Them Witches is a post-apocalyptic horror novel that follows one woman’s journey across a merciless wasteland to save her brother. As she confronts the dark truth behind the monsters that have ravaged the world, she receives help from a woman she’s unsure she can trust, yet finds herself falling for.
Think The Last of Us meets The Watchers with a queer, eldritch twist.
We Call Them Witches
Published: April 7th, 2026
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Genre: Horror fiction/LGBTQ+ horror/ supernatural/ Dystopian horror
Nearly everyone died the first night they came…
Two years ago, monstrous beings tore through Britain, leaving few survivors. Now Sara and her family live on the run, relying on scraps of folklore and fading pagan rituals to stay safe from the eldritch creatures they call "witches".
While her mother grows increasingly paranoid, Sara longs for something more than fear.
Then a strange girl appears in the garden of their current camp. Her name is Parsley, and she cannot remember where she came from or why she's there. Despite her family's suspicions, Sara feels drawn to her.
But when Sara's younger brother is taken by the Witches, she and Parsley must cross desolate moors full of merciless terrors to get him back. As their bond deepens, so do the dangers they face—and Sara begins to question whether anything is truly as it seems.
In a world ruled by terror and myth, trust is the only thing more dangerous than the Witches themselves.
REVIEW
The cover looked cool. The premise and plot sound intriguing, yet the ratings on this book were not so stellar. I still wanted to check out this book, which was available as an ARC on NetGalley at the time. I put in my ARC request to read it for myself, being the ever-definite one(If you say go left, I will go right), I was like, "I am going to read this book anyway."
The story premise is good…and well… It starts out strong, but then turns in a dumbed-down direction, then gets back on its intellectual track again. There is also a lot of vagueness. Not much depth to the setting, the plot, or the characters, especially the witch creatures. Like I said, the plot, the premise of this story is fantastic, but the delivery disappointed me somewhat.
The book took me longer to read than usual because I had to reread parts. Sara, our protagonist, I believe, is an unreliable narrator to the 10th power. I am not sure if she was meant to be, though, as her voice changes at certain times in the story, and there are no hints that she has a split personality. Yet all of this could be due to the book's structure and tone. It was uneven at times, yet Sara’s journey kept me reading. I really like the overall story. The twist at the climax is brutal yet unsurprising.
ALSO! We Call Them Witches has the first realistic dystopian romance I have read or seen. It felt real, and it was brutal. Therefore, I give We Call Them Witches Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐
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We Call Them Witches is now out and available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
