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In this nuanced queer fantasy set amid the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia, the last witch of the Ridge must choose sides in a clash between industry and nature.

Religious trauma, abuse.

After her best friend dies in a coal mine, Benethea “Bennie” Mattox sacrifices her job, her relationship, and her reputation to uncover what’s killing miners on Kire Mountain. When she finds a half-drowned white woman in a dirty mine slough, Bennie takes her in because it’s right—but also because she hopes this odd, magnetic stranger can lead her to the proof she needs.

Instead, she brings more questions. The woman called Motheater can’t remember her true name, or how she ended up inside the mountain. She knows only that she’s a witch of Appalachia, bound to tor and holler, possum and snake, with power in her hands and Scripture on her tongue. But the mystery of her fate, her doomed quest to keep industry off Kire Mountain, and the promises she bent and broke have followed her a century and half into the future. And now, the choices Motheater and Bennie make together could change the face of the town itself.

Don't just take our word for it...

“With Motheater, Codega weaves a darkly enthralling yarn steeped in loss and rage, deftly spinning Appalachia’s past, present, and its rich folkloric tradition into something much more than the sum of its parts.”
– Gretchen Felker-Martin, USA Today-bestselling author of Manhunt and Cuckoo

“When an Appalachian reader says a book feels like home, Motheater is what they mean: magic tied deep in the mountains, history written on the bones, everyday folks facing down titans. This debut is absolutely beautiful.”
– Andrew Joseph White, New York Times-bestselling author of Hell Followed with Us and The Spirit Bears Its Teeth

“A haunted church, a living mountain, an Appalachian witch called from a sleep lasting more than a century—this is a unique tale of love and magic, of a curse to be undone and an environmental disaster to be averted. Motheater will enchant all readers of witch stories!”
– Louisa Morgan, Endeavor Award finalist for A Secret History of Witches

Taste the very first page

Benethea Mattox was not raised to be a fool. Yet here she was, fishing a skinny, barely breathing white lady out of a river. She hauled the waterlogged woman up the steep banks of the backwater creek, taking her time on the muddy incline under the bridge. It was probably the stupidest thing she had done in the whole four years since she had moved out to Kiron, and that was saying something.

The thing was Kiron lay along the western Virginia border, nestled deep in Appalachia—there was nobody else coming down this road, and Bennie would be damned if she called the cops before trying to help someone herself. Besides, the woman didn’t seem to be in danger of dying. Her heart- beat was steady, if slow, and her lips weren’t blue, so she heaved the half-drowned woman on her back and slowly, carefully carried her up the bank. The lady was thin as a reed and weighed nearly the same. Bennie had once carried her two little nephews up a mountain when her brother-in-law said Bennie couldn’t do it. One limp, non-braid-pulling woman was nothing she couldn’t handle.

January 2025