Aurora

by Seraphina Madsen

The second novel by the author of the acclaimed Dodge and Burn (Dodo Ink, 2016) is surreal, speculative, read-in-one-sitting, feminist literary fiction inspired by The Master and Margarita and narrated by a djinn who is obsessed with the young American woman who has released him from a bottle.

“With sorcery, as everyone knows, there is no stopping it.”

Born into Evangelical trailer trash poverty, Aurora finds her way into an elite prep school where she’s drawn into a circle of girls who form a Surrealist coven. Hell-bent on tapping into magic to subvert and transform reality, they encounter forces they should have left alone... A surreal adventure, an infernal fairy-tale, Aurora is a stunning novel that explores witchcraft from a radical new angle.

300 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Jonathan Hutchings · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good start with some wonderful characterisation, but it does seem to fall apart a bit at the end. Enjoyable nonetheless.

[Shan :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the first 3/4 of this book, some reason it went completely off track and random at the end and wasn’t a fan

[Jasmin]

I don’t know how to rate this book! Some parts were great - the character development, the scene setting and the relationship building between aurora and Sylvia. But the rest was quite random. The author has a lot of knowledge on occultism, and large chunks of the book were just spilling of information.

It didn’t seem to go anywhere throughout the story and the point wasn’t very clear, the ending proved that there was little direction. I don’t think any story needs to end with child abuse and kidnapping :/

[Hayley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars! An enthralling story of friendship, magic and life with some interesting literature woven in. I enjoyed the characters and their slow development into sorcery, however the book often relied on passages and quotes from other texts which sometimes felt too long / unnecessary and took me out of the narrative. Not quite sure how I felt about the end either, it kind of dove off into the deep end and the conclusion felt unsatisfying.

[John Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Silly but fun. A very unsatisfying conclusion though.