'For fans of Margaret Atwood' Elle'Thoughtful...wry, magical' Guardian'brimming with wonder' Raven Leilani, author of LusterJosephine Thomas has heard every conceivable theory about her mother's disappearance. That she was kidnapped. Murdered. That she took on a new identity to start a new family. That she was a witch. This is the most worrying charge because in a world where witches are real, peculiar behaviour raises suspicions and a woman - especially a Black woman - can find herself on trial for witchcraft.Finally ready to let go of the past, Jo’s future is in doubt. The State mandates that all women marry by the age of 30 - or forfeit their autonomy by registering to be monitored. At 28, Jo is ambivalent about marriage, feeling she has never understood her mother more. When offered the opportunity to honour one last request from her mother's will, Jo leaves her regular life to feel connected to her one last time.Reminiscent of the works of Margaret Atwood, Deborah Harkness, and Octavia E. Butler, The Women Could Fly is a feminist speculative novel that speaks to our times – a piercing dystopian tale, set in a world in which magic is real and single women are closely monitored in case they are shown to be witches . . .

For fans of Margaret Atwood, Thoughtful novel, written in a wry, magical realist tone reminiscent of Kelly Link and Carmen Maria Machado, Megan Giddings's prose is brimming with wonder. The Women Could Fly is a candid appraisal of grief, inheritance, and the merits of unruliness., This novel put me in the mind of the works of Margaret Atwood. An extraordinary concept, It can be tempting to read The Women Could Fly, which comes in the shadow of the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and call the book timely. But the relationship at the heart of this novel — between Jo and her mercurial mother — is much closer to timeless.

Megan Giddings is the author of the novel Lakewood; a features editor at The Rumpus, a channel of the Los Angeles Review of Books; and a contributing editor at Boulevard. She is a recipient of a Barbara Deming memorial fund grant for feminist fiction. Her short stories have been published in Black Warrior Review, Gulf Coast, and The Iowa Review. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Indiana University. She lives in Michigan.