Ava Morgyn’s The Bane Witch arrives like a velvet-wrapped dagger—beautifully sharp, unsettling, and deeply intentional. With its intoxicating mix of gothic atmosphere, poisonous lore, and seething female rage, the novel evokes a heady blend of Practical Magic and Gone Girl, yet forges its own path through the misty woods of genre fiction. Here, witches do not simply cast spells—they bite back.
Following Piers Corbin, a woman escaping an abusive marriage and uncovering her ancestral legacy of poison-based magic, Morgyn offers readers a dark fantasy mystery brimming with both visceral trauma and lyrical prose. Like poison itself, this book works slowly but irrevocably into the bloodstream. It is a haunting, difficult, and at times exhilarating novel that dares to ask: What if vengeance was a birthright?
The Alchemy of Plot: From Escape to Empowerment
The story begins with Piers faking her own death, leaping from Charleston’s Ravenel Bridge after consuming a mouthful of pokeweed berries. It’s not just an escape—it’s a rebirth. Fleeing a life of control under her sadistic husband, Henry, she travels to the Appalachian mountains to live with her great-aunt Myrtle and uncover a family legacy buried in blood and secrecy.
As Piers slowly integrates into her new life, working at a rural café and feeding men to the forest (literally), a parallel mystery begins to emerge: a serial killer is haunting the nearby towns. Unlike the melodrama one might expect from such a premise, Morgyn roots this narrative in emotional realism and generational pain, showing how ancestral violence often shapes the present.
Yet, the true narrative arc lies in Piers’s self-discovery—not only as a Bane Witch, descended from women who use poison to punish abusers, but as someone who must confront the dark shadow of her past and decide who she truly wants to become.
Character Study: Piers Corbin and the Women Who Raised Her
Piers is not your usual fantasy heroine. She’s brittle but resilient, worn down but never quite broken. Her voice, which anchors the novel’s tone, is both poetic and unflinchingly raw. Morgyn’s choice to write in first-person present tense brings a hypnotic immediacy to Piers’s inner world—a space filled with bruised memories, buried hungers, and a dangerous desire to correct the wrongs of her past.
Piers’s Strengths:
Deeply introspective, with a haunting internal monologue.
A morally complex protagonist: she kills, yes, but always with intention.
Her arc is more about reclamation than redemption.
Supporting characters like Aunt Myrtle and the “venery”—a secret sisterhood of poison eaters—offer guidance, mystery, and generational wisdom. Myrtle, in particular, is a standout: brusque, cunning, and filled with quiet grief, she’s a matriarch whose bite matches her brew.
Even the men, often agents of violence or suspicion, are not caricatures. Morgyn gives us shades of humanity: Sheriff Jack, the charming lawman with a suspicious eye; Don, the bourbon-sipping predator; and Henry, Piers’s monstrous husband whose evil is disturbingly banal.
World-Building: Magic Rooted in Botany and Blood
Rather than relying on traditional spellwork, The Bane Witch builds its magical system around poisonous plants, spiritual inheritance, and female biology. This magic feels earthy, organic, and inherently feminine. Morgyn knows her herbs—pokeweed, belladonna, nightshade—each one a tool and a symbol.
This isn’t a world of flashy enchantments or high fantasy hierarchies. It’s one where power grows in gardens, passes through bloodlines, and lives in whispers. This quieter magic makes the stakes feel higher. When Piers eats a berry, the danger is real, and the consequences are swift.
The Appalachian setting further anchors this realism. Morgyn paints the mountains with a gothic brush—fog-choked hollows, winding roads, ghost towns. The café where Piers works becomes a liminal space: where magic simmers beneath daily life and the dead speak through omens.
Themes: Feminine Fury, Ancestral Trauma, and Poison as Justice
At its molten core, The Bane Witch is a story about survival—not just of the body, but of identity. Morgyn explores themes of:
1. Domestic Abuse and Survival
The novel doesn’t shy from graphic realities. Piers’s marriage to Henry is detailed with disturbing specificity, but never feels gratuitous. It is a necessary horror that shapes her transformation.
2. Female Vengeance as Virtue
The central conceit—witches who ingest poison to hunt evil men—reverses the predator-prey dynamic. Here, women become the reckoning.
3. Inheritance and Legacy
Piers inherits not only power but pain. Morgyn delves into how generational trauma is passed down, suppressed, and finally confronted through action.
4. Identity and Reinvention
From Piers to “Acacia Lee,” the protagonist sheds layers of self like snake skin. The question remains: is she becoming more herself, or someone new entirely?
Writing Style: Sensual, Lyrical, and Razor-Sharp
Ava Morgyn writes with a style that is lush yet incisive. Her prose is soaked in metaphor and sensory imagery, yet every line serves character and plot. Consider this opening passage:
“I planned my death the way I design a room: heavy objects first to anchor the narrative…”
It’s not just poetic—it’s thematic. Morgyn’s background in poetry and feminist fiction shows. Her writing is cinematic but avoids excess. Instead of overwhelming readers with flowery language, she gives us texture, taste, and the thrum of unspoken things.
Stylistically, Morgyn’s voice evokes Gillian Flynn (Sharp Objects) and T. Kingfisher (What Moves the Dead), while retaining a voice uniquely her own.
Critiques: When Style Overshadows Substance
Though The Bane Witch is an engrossing read, it is not without its imperfections.
1. Pacing Woes
The middle act sags slightly. While Morgyn luxuriates in atmosphere and introspection, the plot slows, especially as Piers settles into her new life. Some readers may long for tighter momentum.
2. Underdeveloped Side Characters
While Piers is richly drawn, others—especially the members of the venery—could use more depth. A few feel more like archetypes than fully realized individuals.
3. Moral Ambiguity Lingers
The novel dances between justice and vengeance. While this is intentional, some readers may struggle with Piers’s choices, particularly when innocent people are caught in the crossfire. The novel doesn’t always interrogate this as fully as it could.
Comparative Titles: For Fans Of…
If you loved any of these, The Bane Witch belongs on your TBR:
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow – for its blend of feminism and witchcraft
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston – for its haunted, romantic tone
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn – for its exploration of trauma and bodily autonomy
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher – for its gothic atmosphere and poisonous flora
The Poison Season by Mara Rutherford – for readers who enjoy morally grey magical systems
Also, fans of Ava Morgyn’s previous novel, The Witches of Bone Hill, will find The Bane Witch an evolution in both tone and thematic boldness. Where Bone Hill played with haunted inheritance and ghostly legacy, Bane Witch is darker, more carnal, more politically charged.
Final Verdict: A Poison-Laced Masterpiece of Feminist Dark Fantasy
A very little poison can do a world of good. That’s the mantra that pulses beneath this novel’s skin. The Bane Witch is not just a tale of magic—it’s a reclamation of the feminine body, a reckoning with the violence women carry, and a meditation on the delicate boundary between healing and harm.
For all its mythos and metaphor, the story remains grounded in the very real pain of being a woman in a world that often chooses to silence, shame, or subjugate. Morgyn gives us no easy answers—but she gives us agency. And that might be more powerful than any spell.