VenCo by Cherie Dimaline: Book Review

Cherie Dimaline’s latest release, VenCo, is an examination of a young woman struggling to survive in the city and finding more than she bargained for one night. Released in February 2023 by Random House, VenCo is a look at women trying to take control of their lives. Lucky St. James finds herself on a mysterious road trip from Toronto to Salem and eventually to New Orleans, but is she prepared for what she finds?

CW/TW: death, murder, sexual assault

Synopsis from Goodreads

Lucky St. James, orphaned daughter of a bad-ass Métis good-times girl, is barely hanging on to her nowhere life when she finds out that she and her grandmother, Stella, are about to be evicted from their apartment. Bad to worse in a heartbeat. Then one night, doing laundry in the building’s dank basement, Lucky feels an irresistible something calling to her. Crawling through a hidden hole in the wall, she finds a tarnished silver spoon depicting a story-book hag over letters that spell out S-A-L-E-M.

Which alerts Salem-born Meena Good, finder of a matching spoon, to Lucky’s existence. One of the most powerful witches in North America, Meena, has been called to bring together seven special witches and seven special spoons–infused with magic and scattered to the four directions more than a century ago–to form a magic circle that will restore women to their rightful power. Under the wing of the international headhunting firm VenCo, devoted to placing exceptional women in roles where they can influence business, politics, and the arts, Meena has spent years searching out witches hiding in plain sight wherever women gather: suburban book clubs, Mommy & Me groups, temp agencies. Lucky and her spoon are number six.

With only one more spoon to find, a very powerful adversary has Meena’s coven in his sights–Jay Christos, a roguish and deadly witch-hunter as old as witchcraft itself. As the clock ticks toward a now-or-never deadline, Meena sends Lucky and her grandmother on a dangerous, sometimes hilarious, road trip through the United States in search of the seventh spoon. The trail leads them at last to the darkly magical city of New Orleans, where Lucky’s final showdown with Jay Christos will determine whether the coven will be completed, ushering in a new beginning, or whether witches will be forced to remain forever underground.

My Opinions

Lucky St. James is a 20-something just trying to survive in this world. She’s the lone caregiver to Stella, her grandmother. Stella has memory lapses, making Lucky’s life more difficult. While doing the laundry in the basement of their apartment building, Lucky discovers a spoon. She’s not sure why she’s drawn to it, but soon she is contacted by a stranger with an offer she can’t refuse-security! Lucky takes Stella on a road trip to learn more about this offer. Along the way, she learns more about her grandmother and herself.

Each member of the coven is a strong woman, each with a different background. Soon Lucky discovers a family she’s never had before. Even if they aren’t related by blood, she knows that they will be there for each other no matter what.

My only issue with the book is the occasional inconsistencies with the characters. Maybe it’s more that Dimaline left the characters’ backgrounds vaguer than I would like. How Christos is described makes it easy to picture him as you read. But with Freya, it’s a bit more difficult as there aren’t many descriptions of her outside of the clothes she wears and that she’s younger than the others. Lucky doesn’t escape the inconsistencies, either. One moment the character reads to be in her late teens or early 20s, but a chapter or two later, it feels like she’s closer to 30.

If you like books with strong female characters, found family, self-discovery, and/or witches, then you should read this book. VenCo is the first book by Cherie Dimaline that I have read, but it won’t be the last!

Looking for some more books to read? Check out my bookish lists, book reviews, and monthly reading wrap-ups.