Dark Sisters by Kristi DeMeester
St. Martin’s Press (December 2025)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
“And from their blood we will prosper.”
If there was ever a time for a rally cry of a read, one that holds a mirror up to the misogyny in our world, it’s now. Kristi DeMeester delivers just that with snarling fury and unflinching realism in her latest novel, Dark Sisters. It’s folk, historical, and feminist horror interwoven like a three-strand braid and is told through three women’s perspectives across centuries. Dark Sisters is a brilliant criticism of patriarchal structures used to control women’s bodies and beliefs and the damage inflicted upon generations to come.
Reading it made me want to gather my sisters under the moon and scream into the night. To stomp and shout our fury into a storm. Dark Sisters tells readers to be angry, to unify in that rage. To defy expectations and false gods and to prioritize yourself and womankind. It’s unforgetably fierce.
In Dark Sisters, three women face a generations-long curse. Anne Bolton is a healer facing persecution for witchcraft who strikes a deal with a dark entity for protection. Mary Shepherd is the idyllic wife in a religious community called The Path but she has a secret life, too. A secret love. Camilla is the pastor’s daughter and for most of her life, she’s played the good girl role to perfection. But she discovers things about The Path and the Dark Sisters that make her question all that she has ever known.
There’s this inescapable somebody’s watching me dread throughout Dark Sisters that women know all too well. It escalates with a steady pace from the first whispers of persecution for witchcraft to the creepy traditions of the Purity Ball. There’s a man in charge of a flock in each timeline and the aggressions they inflict upon women vary, but are infuriating and vile just the same. Anne is haunted by the shadow of the noose. The whispered accusations. The way the accused women are made a spectacle and thrown away. For Mary, there was the “gift” of a new washer and dryer in place of love and support. There’s her desire for true love met with punishment and enforced isolation. And for Camilla, there’s the constant threat of the Retreat, a place for spiritual and behavioral rehabilitation for girls and women. And the constant threat of impurity, and worst of all, becoming like the damned Dark Sisters.
I felt attached to each of these women. I rooted for them. I wanted them to find their voices and scream until their throats were raw. There’s the explicit message in Dark Sisters that denying ourselves of being who we truly are has disastrous consequences, fatal even. This gave each of the characters a depth that sustained the tension and allowed the three timelines to come together in a satisfying ending. It also helped with the overwhelm and favoritism that some readers might experience with a story told through multiple points of view. Each narrative is essential.
While the feminist elements are truly what shine in Dark Sisters, there is also incredibly terrifying imagery. The grotesque, screaming faces in the dark woods. The betrayals. Coercion and theft of autonomy. The bloodletting. It’s pink horror with excruciatingly real fright and a gothic, suffocating atmosphere that will leave readers gasping for breath.
Memorable, horrific, and reflective, Dark Sisters is for fans of Rachel Harrison, Johanna Van Veen, A. Rushby’s Slashed Beauties, Silvia Moreno Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, and anyone who enjoys the “I support women’s rights..and wrongs” vibe in horror.
