I knew from the first minute that VenCo would be special, but I didn’t realize just how deeply it would root itself in my heart. Cherie Dimaline has crafted a gorgeously gritty modern witch story infused with love — not just romantic love, but familial love, community love, and the kind of fierce tenderness that binds generations of women together. It’s rich with magic, grounded in Métis identity, and driven by characters who feel both powerful and profoundly human.

This was everything I want in a story: witches with purpose, found families that feel like home, and a plot that lets women reclaim what was always theirs. I loved every minute of it.

At the heart of VenCo is Lucky St. James — a Métis millennial trying to keep her life afloat — and her fiercely loving, wonderfully sharp grandmother Stella. Their relationship is the soul of the novel. Stella isn't just comic relief or a background presence — she’s a full, vibrant character with her own arc and grit. Their intergenerational love feels real, complex, and absolutely radiant on the page.

I cried, I laughed, I wanted to call my own grandmother. Their bond is the kind that carries you through hard things and reminds you why we fight for better.

As Lucky is drawn into a hidden world of witches and prophecy, she finds herself swept into a quest to reunite the long-lost VenCo coven. What unfolds is part road trip, part mystery, part reclamation. The witches she meets along the way — each distinct, each deeply rooted in different communities and cultures — represent the spectrum of what womanhood, power, and resistance can look like.

The found family that emerges is glorious. These women are fierce and flawed, full of laughter, rage, and healing. They bicker, they protect, they choose one another — and I would follow them anywhere.

What makes VenCo truly shine is how deeply it’s grounded in Métis culture and storytelling. Dimaline weaves it into the very bones of the book. From Lucky’s worldview to the cultural references and the spiritual texture of the magic, everything feels intentional, layered, and full of her culture.

This isn’t a story that flattens identity into metaphor. It’s proud, rooted, and joyful — a reclamation of space in a genre that often erases Indigenous presence.

The witchcraft in VenCo isn’t about flash or spectacle. It’s quiet and powerful, grounded in knowledge, lineage, and resistance. Dimaline uses witchcraft as a metaphor for community strength, cultural survival, and the inheritance of power. And in doing so, she gives us a story that feels both deeply ancient and fiercely modern.

You don’t need to be a witch to understand what it means to carry the strength of the women before you — and VenCo reminds us how precious and dangerous that strength truly is.

VenCo is a love letter to women, witches, aunties, grandmothers, and every person who’s ever felt like the world didn’t have a place for their kind of magic. It’s about carving that space anyway. And filling it with love.

If you’re looking for a witchy, empowering, beautifully written read with Indigenous magic and a warm, unbreakable heart — VenCo is the book for you.