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VenCo

A Novel

Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

""Once I opened VenCo, I was propelled through an entire night of charmed reading. Cherie Dimaline creates a world utterly fantastical, yet real. VenCo is funny, tense, and cracking with a dark, divine energy."" —-Louise Erdrich, New York Times bestselling author of The Sentence

For fans of The Once and Future Witches and Practical Magic, comes an incredibly imaginative, highly anticipated new novel featuring witches, magic, and a road trip across America—from Cherie Dimaline, the critically acclaimed author of Empire of Wild.

Métis millennial Lucky St. James is barely hanging on when she learns she'll be evicted from the tiny Toronto apartment she shares with her cantankerous but loving grandmother Stella. But then one night, something strange and irresistible calls out to Lucky. She burrows through a wall to find a tarnished silver spoon, humming with otherworldly energy, etched with a crooked-nosed witch and the word SALEM.

Lucky is familiar with the magic of her indigenous ancestors, but she has no idea that the spoon connects her to a teeming network of witches across North America who have anxiously awaited her discovery.

Enter VenCo, a front company fueled by vast resources of dark money (its name is an anagram of "coven.") VenCo's witches hide in plain sight wherever women gather: Tupperware parties, Mommy & Me classes, suburban book clubs. Since colonial times, they have awaited the moment the seven spoons will come together and ignite a new era, returning women to their rightful power.

But as reckoning approaches, a very powerful adversary is stalking their every move. He's Jay Christos, a roguish and deadly witch-hunter as old as witchcraft itself.

To find the last spoon, Lucky and Stella embark on a rollicking and dangerous road trip to the darkly magical city of New Orleans, where the final showdown will determine whether VenCo will usher in a new beginning...or remain underground forever.

A wildly imaginative and compulsively readable fantasia of adventure, history, Americana, feminism, and magic, VenCo is a novel only the supremely gifted Cherie Dimaline could write.

"Crackling with magic, mystery, adventure, and intrigue, VenCo is a captivating tribute to the bonds of families we are born into and the ones that we create, and a delightful testament to the power of all womankind."— Nikki Erlick, New York Times bestselling author of The Measure

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 10, 2022
      Dimaline (Empire of Wild) underwhelms in this clunky feminist fantasy. Half-Métis Torontonian Lucky St. James is an underemployed, burned-out caregiver to her grandmother Stella. Then she finds a magical spoon, discovers she’s a witch, and moves to Salem with Stella to join a fledgling coven. The coven will usher in a new era—but only if all seven magical spoons in existence can be found by other unknowing witches like Lucky before the Benandanti, a group of misogynist witch hunters, can find them first. Dimaline’s trans-inclusive, BIPOC cast is admirable, but she works in their perspectives in the clunkiest way possible, interrupting the narrative at odd moments to give nearly every supporting character a POV section used to convey unwieldy backstory and describe prophetic dreams. Though this aspires to be literary fantasy—and indeed Dimaline’s prose is strong—the plot feels oddly like a mid-’90s girl power YA fantasy and offers frustratingly shallow readings of both historical events and contemporary power structures. The main villain falls particularly flat: a member of the Benandanti pointedly named Jay Christos, who’s only ever shown negging, sexually assaulting, and/or murdering everyone he meets; he’s more cardboard cutout than character. All but Dimaline’s most devoted fans can skip this one. Agent: Ron Eckel, CookeMcDermid Litarary.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Michelle St. John performs this witchy novel by M�tis author Cherie Dimaline. Lucky lives with her ailing grandmother in Toronto. With the rent due and being short on funds, Lucky agrees to interview for a well-paying job with the mysterious organization VenCo. But instead of a company, Lucky discovers a coven of witches. St. John captures the sinister atmosphere and the mysterious entities seeking to control Lucky, who at first has little idea of what is happening. St. John moves with ease among the many characters, skillfully performing their perspectives. Her narration keeps listeners delightfully on the edge of their seats. K.D.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      May 1, 2023

      Canadian M�tis novelist Dimaline's (Empire of Wild; The Marrow Thieves) latest outing follows Lucky St. James, a M�tis woman whose life hasn't been lucky at all. The sole caretaker for her grandmother Stella, Lucky is underemployed and expecting to be evicted from their Toronto apartment at any moment. Then she finds a mysterious silver spoon that leads her to a coven of modern-day witches looking to initiate a new era of witchcraft. As the coven's sixth member, Lucky must discover the seventh, but she has only 17 days to do so. With vicious witch-hunter Jay Christos on her trail, success looks increasingly unlikely. While listeners may be intrigued by the storyline, narrator Michelle St. John's performance does little to enhance the text. As the audio progresses, St. John's characterizations become more robust, but listeners may initially struggle to distinguish between characters. Additionally, the production suffers from an echoey, hollow tone and is further marred by volume changes, breathiness, and mispronunciations. VERDICT An inessential audio purchase, except where interest in Dimaline's works is high. Listeners would be better served by Alix E. Harrow's The Once and Future Witches or India Holton's The League of Gentlewomen Witches.--Sarah Hashimoto

      Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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