One Way Witch follows Najeeba, a woman with natural abilities as a sorcerer, as she trains in these abilities with the intention of going after a threat stalks and takes people from the village she grew up in. It occurs after Najeeba’s daughter has left and changed the world, and Najeeba is mourning both the loss of her husband and her daughter, processing grief. I didn’t love this as much as She Who Knows – it did feel a bit ‘middle book’ in that a lot of it is backstory as well as anticipatory of what will be the plot of the final book – but Okorafor’s writing is impactful and beautiful as always and the character development of Najeeba is really effective. I will certainly pick up the final installment and finish this trilogy. 

This is a sequel to the novella She Who Knows; I strongly discourage reading this one first as key elements of the backstory of the characters would be missing. These books are also set in the same universe as Who Fears Death, which follows Onyesonwu, Najeeba’s daughter, and chronologically falls mostly between these two novellas; I have not read this book but can still easily make sense of these novellas (though they refer to – and no doubt contain spoilers – for the novel). 

Thank you to DAW and NetGalley for providing me an ARC to review. 

Content warnings: rape, sexual assault, violence, slavery (as having occurred prior to the plot of this story), animal cruelty, animal death