Wise, unapologetically political, and deeply human, The Old Witches Camp is less concerned with casting spells than with the people brave enough to imagine a different future.
There is something quietly radical about a novel that insists older women still have stories worth telling. Not as mentors. Not as comic relief. Not as wise side characters waiting to hand the torch to someone younger. But as the heroes themselves.
That, more than anything else, is what stayed with me after finishing The Old Witches Camp.
Although this is the second installment in the series, readers don’t have to play catch-up. Author Avian Swansong provides enough context for new readers to settle naturally into the world of Elder Tree Grove Camp while trusting returning readers with the deeper history between its characters.
Set at a week-long witch camp tucked away in the Adirondacks, the novel blends magical realism with something far more grounded: the messy, beautiful reality of community. When Birdie discovers the outspoken Terra lying motionless in the center of the Hexadecagon after an evening ritual, the mystery that follows becomes less about solving a supernatural puzzle than understanding the people at its heart. From there, Swansong explores aging, environmental responsibility, accessibility, activism, identity, and the complicated work of living alongside people who challenge us as often as they support us.
Swansong’s greatest strength isn’t ornate language; it’s her ability to juggle a surprisingly large ensemble without losing sight of each character’s emotional purpose. Whether it’s Birdie’s steady leadership, Terra’s relentless conviction, Maple’s quiet warmth, or Mnemosyne’s insistence that even fairy tales be interrogated through an anti-racist lens, each member of the camp feels like someone who existed before page one and will continue living long after the novel ends.
Terra, in particular, is one of the novel’s greatest achievements. She is stubborn, exhausting, deeply principled, and frequently difficult to like. She questions everything, from accessibility and environmental practices to long-held traditions, often with little patience for diplomacy. Lesser novels would reduce a character like Terra to either comic relief or a convenient antagonist. Swansong does neither. Instead, she allows readers to wrestle with an uncomfortable truth: sometimes the people pushing hardest for change are also the hardest people to live beside.
The novel’s social and political themes are equally nuanced. The Camp Ritual Creation Team’s reinterpretation of Little Red Riding Hood becomes an avenue to examine capitalism, colonialism, environmental exploitation, and collective responsibility without ever losing sight of the relationships driving those conversations.
Swansong doesn’t avoid preaching entirely, and there are moments where the dialogue clearly carries the author’s convictions. Surprisingly, though, it rarely derails the story. That’s largely because those conversations happen between people who have spent decades loving, frustrating, organizing beside, and occasionally exasperating one another. These aren’t strangers debating politics on the internet. They’re community members trying to figure out how to live their values while still sharing a dining hall, a ritual circle, and a week together in the Adirondacks.
One of the novel’s most memorable moments comes at the start when Birdie asks the ritual team to commit to offering one another “only relentless support and love.” It is a simple promise, but it quietly becomes the emotional heartbeat of the story. Not because everyone succeeds, but because they continue striving toward it.
Ultimately, The Old Witches Camp isn’t really about witches. It’s about what happens when people choose community over comfort. It’s about growing older without becoming invisible. It’s about confronting systems larger than ourselves while still believing that gathering together—in ritual, in conversation, in laughter, and in resistance—can matter.
In a literary landscape that still too often sidelines older women, Avian Swansong has written something thoughtful, timely, and refreshingly original. It is a novel that understands the most compelling magic has never been casting spells. It is the courage to imagine a better world and to keep showing up, together, to build it.
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