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Book Reviewed by:Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.
"Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches": That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that's why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.
In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay's most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay's manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.
Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.
Excerpt
The Bewitching
Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches. That was what Nana Alba used to say when she told Minerva bedtime stories; it was the preamble that led into a realm of shadows and mysteries.
Shortly after Minerva first arrived at Stone¬ridge, she'd looked toward the thick mass of trees that constituted Briar's Commons and heard a shrill cry that sounded like an infant's wail. For a moment she'd shivered in fear, thinking of her great-¬grandmother's tales of witches who drank the blood of the innocent on moonless nights. But it had been only a peacock.
She was used to the birds now, the gray peahens and the beautiful males with their dazzling displays of iridescent feathers. They'd sun themselves on the lawn in front of Ledge House and sometimes they'd even sit on the porch of the old mansion. The story went that when the college acquired the building and turned it into a dorm, the peacocks had been part of the deal. A superstitious old dean ...
The Bewitching follows the stories of three women living decades apart: one in 1904, one in 1934, and one in 1998. In this work by the author of Mexican Gothic, the women are whipsmart and curious, traits that draw them further into the mysteries surrounding them. All three stories center upon mysterious disappearances of loved ones—one in a Mexican farm town, and the other two at a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts. It was a treat learning more about Mexican theories and practices of witchcraft. I've read a lot about the occult in various cultures, but these characters and stories were new. The magic practices used against them were fascinating. In addition to being informative, the stark visuals linger in my mind. While The Bewitching contains plenty of horror and occult elements, I didn't find it to be a dark or cumbersome read, and there's minimal gore...continued
Full Review
(752 words)
(Reviewed by Erin Lyndal Martin).
J. M. Miro, author of Ordinary Monsters
Remarkably gripping, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's The Bewitching is a gorgeous, propulsive tale of witchcraft across the generations. This is a novel of eerie beauty, a book you won't want to turn your back on. Jessica Johns, author of Bad Cree
The Bewitching is a stunning story about the power of generational knowledge that proves that any danger to be found in magic lies solely in the person who wields it. Silvia Moreno-Garcia shows just how a story can be a spell—one I was happy to be under.
In Silvia Moreno-Garcia's The Bewitching, Minerva refers often to stories published in a literary magazine called Weird Tales. The magazine was launched in 1923 "to showcase writers trying to publish stories so bizarre and far out, no one else would publish them," according to its website. It was that very mission statement that led to Weird Tales publishing writers who profoundly influenced the genres of horror and speculative fiction. H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith are its most enduring exports.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1890. In addition to writing original fiction, Lovecraft was also a ghostwriter and rewriter of others' work. His short stories and novels evince a ...
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