“There is a special place in Hell for women who don’t support other women.”
–Madeleine Albright
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Although I used to devour historical fiction as a teenager, I haven’t read much of it this century. However, I couldn’t put down Jennifer Chevalier’s debut novel, The Winter Witch, which offers a fresh take on the tale of “les filles du roy.” In the late 17th century, around 800 of these “daughters of the King set sail from France to become brides and help populate the colonies.
The Winter Witch is told from the alternating perspectives of orphaned sisters Marthe and Elisabeth, who are escaping the dismal prospects of their tiny rural village. Elisabeth has found herself at the centre of a village scandal after being cursed by an old woman in a tavern. Although Marthe is not happy that Elisabeth has chosen this path, she’s willing to make the best of it, but Elisabeth is determined to find a way back to her former lover. The ship for Ville Marie (now Montreal), holds others looking for adventure or escape of some kind.
Their dangerous journey across stormy seas, with limited rations, is shadowed by fear of witches after the ship’s priest launches a hunt for one he believes joined them in Normandy. Jeanne Roy, a mysterious wealthy woman who “borrows” Elisabeth’s letter of good conduct, seems like an obvious candidate. Although Marthe has no patience for such ideas, Elisabeth hopes that the witch will help her remove the demon she fears lives inside her.
Historical novels risk either giving short shrift to accuracy in order to protect the story or getting bogged down in detail at the expense of the story. Chevalier, however, has managed to produce an engaging tale that highlights the realities of colonialism and frontier life. She handles contemporary religious, folk, and social beliefs with nuance, and highlghts the strength and camaraderie among this group of strong and powerful women.
What stayed with me most was the way the novel centres women’s interior lives and relationships in a world designed to confine them. The bond between Marthe and Elisabeth is messy, loyal, and deeply human. We see them arguing, misjudging one another, and still choosing, again and again, to show up for each other when it matters. Around them, Chevalier gathers an unruly chorus of widows, would-be brides, “witches,” and survivors, who share stories, food, and hard‑won knowledge in the cramped, dangerous spaces they are allowed to occupy. Even when the men on the ship and in the colonies wield formal authority, it’s the quiet networks of care, resistance, and complicity among the women that shape the trajectory. The novel is an important reminder that the most powerful feminist stories don’t always look like open rebellion; sometimes they’re about refusing to abandon one another, even when the world expects us to.