“Bell, book and candle, candle, book and bell, Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell.” Christopher Marlowe in Dr. Faustus

“Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back, When gold and silver becks me to come on.” William Shakespeare in King John

The phrase “bell, book and candle” became associated with witches because the church believed them to be Devil-worshippers who should be excommunicated, and it’s a phrase, particularly as the title of a book, that you will hear in The Bewitching.

I’d say this story is a slow build but it’s more like three snowballs rolling down a hill, rapidly gaining girth and speed until they slam into a brick wall and explode. That’s because there are three stories going on here: one at the turn of the century, one during the Depression, and the final in 1998. And they all involve witchcraft. But who are the witches and why are they bewitching?

All three main characters are interesting—Alba, Beatrice, and Minerva. And so are the people who swirl around them from Arturo to Ginny to Carolyn. And the time periods are very real. This is an excellent book and why I am a huge fan of Moreno-Garcia.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

GoodReads says:

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.