Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a lauded name in the haunted halls of gothic fiction thanks to acclaimed works like Mexican Gothic. Her latest entry to the subgenre is as decadent as it is terrifying, filled with delightful turns of phrase and archival tidbits, and steeped in Mexican folklore.
The Bewitching begins innocently enough. Minerva, a graduate student at Stoneridge College, is struggling with her thesis on Beatrice Tremblay, a horror writer of moderate acclaim. As we’re introduced to Minerva’s world of 1990s academia—colonial New England dorms, libraries populated by taxidermied birds and preserved insects, ivy-encrusted mansions, abandoned factories—we simultaneously learn of her great-grandmother, Nana Alba, whose coming-of-age in the 1908 Mexican countryside is recounted in parallel chapters. A third storyline is introduced in the form of Beatrice Tremblay’s unpublished novella, which was inspired by the events of 1934, when her bosom friend and crush, Virginia Somerset, disappeared from Stoneridge College.
The three women’s stories unfurl slowly, with ample time devoted to setting descriptions and enigmatic side characters. Moreno-Garcia’s lovely prose, and the concurrent mysteries of Virginia’s disappearance and how Nana Alba survived a bewitching, infuse this beginning sequence with momentum. When witchcraft fully enters the narrative, like rot seeping in, the novel gains speed, feeding on a delicious sense of paranoia and the classic whodunit guesswork of trying to figure out the source of the strange lights, sinister noises and inexplicable violence that circle closer and closer to our protagonists.
Moreno-Garcia maintains suspense with spectacular deftness. Like a writhing snake, the shape of evil constantly takes on new configurations, suiting the characters’ distinct circumstances and showcasing Moreno-Garcia’s imagination and her understanding of pure horror.
Well-researched and beautifully written, The Bewitching will satisfy fans looking for a darkly atmospheric read. Readers who enjoyed Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House or Tana French’s moody, character-driven murder mysteries will also revel in this novel’s twists and turns. Minerva, Alba and Beatrice are stalwart, intuitive protagonists who endure and confront immense danger, and who embody what it means to be your own rescuer.
