The Invocations

By Krystal Sutherland

Reviewed by Alison McCaffrey

Winner of the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adult Literature, The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland has it all: strong girls protecting each other; older women listening to younger women; occult magic based in ancient folklore that feels completely plausible; relatable, even dislikable, characters you’ll cheer for, no matter the cost. The dedication is ‘For all the angry girls’ but this story reminds us: all girls are angry about being afraid.

Emer speaks a dozen dead languages and is a squatter at Oxford University. She is a witch, a curse-writer. Emer uses her inherited gift to help girls and women who seek her out, to bind their soul to a demon for power, and doesn’t take payment. Jude is a billionaire’s daughter living alone in a beautiful house. She has a failed curse on her leg seeping pain and violence, and wants the curse removed and redemption with her family. Zara is mourning her sister who was murdered one year ago. She is searching for a way to bring her sister back to life, and needs to learn magic to do so.

The three girls’ paths cross when Jude and Zara realise Emer wrote curses for several murdered women around London, and they find themselves at the centre of a witch-hu- … woman-hunt on an epic scale. Each of them wants something, needs something, they can’t do on their own. Working together seems like the only way to stop more of Emer’s clients from being killed, and maybe Jude and Zara can get what they want, too.

The Invocations brings the oft-unspoken but constant fear of women and girls everywhere to the surface and waves it in your face disguised as brilliant writing. With it comes the rage simmering just below, dreams of anyone who has been afraid, and what they would do if they had the power to crush that fear like a bug. Infused with bravery, friendship, and most of all hope, The Invocations is a testimony to the strength and bonds true feminism can bring about when the quest for women’s freedom is explicitly tied to our safety.

It’s a bit gory, a little gruesome, and there is a smattering of demon-infused chaos, but this is a must-read for any young adult reader who enjoys magic or the occult, strong characters or a good mystery, or just a great book, really.

Penguin 2025

Krystal Sutherland