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Unapologetic Ambition
Roots & Wrath centers around five former friends and witches who find themselves bound together by their deceased professor’s will. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
You know, ideas come from everywhere. I had a friend who was fascinated by tontines–a type of will where the last person living gets everything (it’s now illegal because it incentivizes murder). But from there it became a story about ambition, friendship, power, vulnerability, and those bad choices we make while coming of age that cannot be undone. Hopefully, for most of us, those bad choices aren’t as costly as for these young witches.
The novel focuses as much on broken friendships as it does on magic. Why did you want the emotional history between the women to drive the story?
Because this concept started with the concept of a tontine, it was always necessary that this story focus not on an individual but on a group. Then, I needed compelling reasons for them not to trust each other–the incentive of a will simply is not enough to make it believable that five friends, or even five strangers, would move to murder as the solution. There had to be compelling reasons for divide, mistrust, and… well, proactively defensive action, if you will.
Alicia is a wonderfully complicated protagonist—sharp, defensive, funny, and deeply wounded. What did you enjoy most about writing her?
Thank you! Yes, I absolutely loved writing these deeply flawed ladies. Alicia and her friends let me really let loose my darker side with their unapologetic ambition, ego, judgement, and snark. I find the most flawed characters are the ones I love the most in other stories, and I think that deeply flawed women in particular are so important–we need to get women out of these glass cases and let us be fully, problematically human, in stories and in life.
I find a problem in well-written stories, in that I always want there to be another book to keep the story going. Is there a second book planned?
For now, at least, Roots & Wrath is a standalone. I think it has duology potential to see what happens to Beverly when she grows up and goes to Millinocket herself, but I’m not sure where that goes–yet.
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Six young witches hungry to achieve remarkable things…until they performed a clandestine ritual in the dark wood. Only five witches returned. The secret they buried beneath a hungry great oak split them apart forever.
Now there are five.
Eighteen years later, the death of their legendary mentor forces them back together. In her will, the professor binds them to carry on her work until their magical bond is shattered for good…by death.
Soon, there will be four.
The remaining witches scramble to uncover who is willing to kill to escape their bond. Magical spells and broken alliances—not to mention a relentless ghost of their past deeds—drive them back to the dark wood to unearth their past.
Can any of them survive the specter of the dark wood and finally put the past to rest?
Roots & Wrath is a standalone dark fantasy featuring ruthless, unapologetic female characters in a twisty, suspenseful whirlwind of a plot. Perfect for fans of The Craft, Yellowjackets, Plain Bad Heroines, The Return, and Once and Future Witches.
Roots & Wrath
Roots & Wrath, by E. J. Wenstrom, is a dark fantasy thriller about five former friends, witches who once formed a powerful pentam at an elite magical school, being dragged back together after the death of their old professor. What begins as an uncomfortable memorial turns into something much darker when Alicia, Everyn, Isa, Rachel, and Sybil learn that Professor Berriman’s will has bound them to her unfinished work through an old blood oath. From there, the novel becomes a sharp, witchy story about power, guilt, ambition, betrayal, and the awful weight of the past refusing to stay buried.
I liked how prickly the book allows its characters to be. Alicia, especially, is not softened for the reader. She is angry, defensive, vain, wounded, and often funny in a cutting way. I found that refreshing. The story doesn’t pretend that old friendships, especially ones forged under pressure and broken by trauma, can be fixed with one heartfelt conversation. These women hurt each other. They also know each other in ways no one else can. That tension gives the book its pulse. The magic is fun and dangerous, but the emotional history is what kept pulling me in.
Wenstrom’s choices give the novel a nice bite. The alternating “now” and “then” structure works well because it lets the dread build in layers. We see the adult witches circling each other like knives, then we go back and watch how they became that way. I also appreciated that the school setting isn’t just nostalgic window dressing. Millinocket feels enchanted, with its rituals, codes, and old power, but it also feels like a place where ambition can curdle. The book is candid about how institutions can reward brilliance while ignoring harm. That idea sits under the plot like a root system.
I would recommend Roots & Wrath to readers who enjoy dark fantasy, witch fiction, and supernatural thrillers with messy adult friendships at the center. It will especially appeal to readers who like stories about magical schools after the shine has worn off, when the graduates are older, angrier, and still paying for what happened there. This isn’t cozy witchcraft. It’s sharp, moody, and full of grudges. And for the right reader, that is exactly the fun of it.
Pages: 397 | ASIN : B0GSGPD2PD
