Books Over Coffee : The Bewitching - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

New England ✅

Witches ✅

Mexican folklore ✅

A decades long mystery ✅

Magic, folklore and stories passed down through generations blend together in Silvia Moreno-Garcia's newest novel.

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Title :  The Bewitching
Author : Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Genre:  General Fiction (Adult) | Horror | Sci Fi & Fantasy
Pages:  368
Own/Borrowed/ARC:  eARC
Publication Date:   July 15,2025 
Synopsis : 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.

'Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches'

We begin this journey in 1998 New England, with Minerva. A graduate student from Mexico at Stoneridge College in New England, whose thesis focuses on the life of a small known author Beatrice Tremblay. An author who wrote a horror novel titled The Vanishing, about a student that vanishes mysteriously; an event that echoes an experience that Beatrice herself had while living on campus at Stoneridge College in 1934.

We learn that Minerva's love for horror comes from her close relationship with her great grandmother, Alba. Alba would spin tales to a young Minerva about witches, spells, and bewitchings; having encounters of her own at the age of 19 in the year 1908, whilst in Mexico. It is through that love of horror that she voraciously consumes it and finds all that she can, when she happens upon Beatrice Tremblay's work through a correspondence she had with HP Lovecraft. This would be the catalyst that intertwines the three women's past, present and futures together.

We learn about all three and their experiences with the supernatural through their own point of views. As Minerva works through her writers block, a boy on campus, Thomas, disappears under what seems like similar circumstances to Beatrice's roommate decades prior, leading Minerva to dig further into the matter. Uncovering along the way that these two were not random occurrences. The line between what's real and fictional begins to blur the more she investigates, and while uncovering fact, further threads unravel surrounding the disappearance of Beatrice's roommate, and other missing co-eds from campus. She soon finds her great grandmother's Alba's stories begin to carry more weight in her mind and reality. Paranoia begins to set in as Minerva tries to figure out what it all means for her and how to proceed in the situations she finds herself in.

The atmosphere and setting of New England, for Minerva and Beatrice's point of view, helps lean into the paranoia that Minerva encounters. You feel yourself being trapped in the mystery of these disappearances with her as she retraces steps, tracks down leads and finds herself isolated in her own mind. Mixed in with her not knowing who to trust or what to believe as things become unriddled with each new finding, it makes for an unsettling ambience.

“She'd once asked Nana Alba how she’d survive a war, suffered through the years of meagre crops and too many hungry mouths. You simply live through it, she’d said.”

The same goes for Piedras Quebradas during Alba's point of view. Living on a farm land where she was isolated in her own world, having to travel far to try to get answers after the passing of her father and disappearance of her brother fills you with a hopelessness of the possibility of no answer to ever be found. Not only is she physically isolated, she is also isolated from her own family as she brings up what she thinks could be happening to their family, only to be told that she is foolish and to never talk of such things again. Leaving her alone in her grief, plights, and what she is willing to do to keep what's left of her family safe. Alba has to figure out, much like her great granddaughter decades later, what to believe in and how to move forward.

These three worlds merge into one as Minerva solves not only what happened to Beatrice's roommate but also to her missing co-ed, Thomas, and many others missing in the past couple of decades. Showing that some things in the world are just universal no matter where, or who, you are.

I enjoyed the story that unravelled and the atmosphere that it provided. The only thing that took me out of it is that I personally don't like multiple point of views, while it was used with purpose and contributed to the slow unravelling of the mysteries, it's a me thing. Since I don't have much time to sit and read books in one or two sittings, when I would come back to it I had to refresh myself on whose point of view I was following. Again, that's a me thing. There also was a point where I could predict what was happening but it didn't take anything from the way it unravelled.

Overall, I would call this more of a mystery, thriller, and even gothic with some supernatural elements to it rather than horror that I see a lot of people say it is. That's because I consume a lot of horror and this just seems a little tame to me. This is still a book I would enjoy reading again to see things I might have missed, like the names used by the author for characters to are nods to other authors. I enjoyed the blend of folklore, mysticism and mystery as things unravelled but the pacing did put me off when we would go back and forth in the point of views.

Content warnings include death, incest, blood, animal death, animal cruelty, sexual content and gore.

*Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

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