This is part horror, part a story of witches and being bewitched, and part mystery novel. It is compulsively readable and although set in three different time periods, it is easy to follow, and the three stories are interconnected.

The story really centers around Minerva in 1998, a graduate student in an upper Northwest college who decides to write her thesis on a deceased horror writer, Beatrice Tremblay. Beatrice’s good friend and unrequited love, Virginia, disappears one night in the mid-1930’s. Virigina talked to ghosts and was having weird experiences before she vanished.

The earliest timeline is 1908 when Minerva’s great-grandmother also encounters strange portents then her brother vanishes, and her friend Valentin is murdered in a gruesome fashion. She suspects the paranormal and eventually discovers the truth behind the evil lurking around her. This timeline is the most intricate in many ways. And the fact Minerva’s great-grandmother survived a bewitching does much for Beatrice uncovering the strange goings on in the 1930’s and in her own time.

I loved how the story around the witches became intricate by the end of the novel and how both Alba and Minerva learned how to combat it. I did figure out who the evil people were by the middle of the book, but that didn’t spoil anything at all.

This was a very interesting and entertaining novel.

Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches."
This eerie historical fiction is all consuming, Minerva pulls you and Alba and Beatrice help keep you. This is entrancing witch tale follows 3 woman and their connection to the supernatural. Would be the best fall time read you'll only wish you've read it sooner.

Thank you to NetGalley for sharing an arc with me.

Many people are waiting to read “The Bewitching” after falling in love with Silvia Moreno-Garcia with “Mexican Gothic”, one of her most famous works.
Instead, “The Bewitching” was my first time reading a book of hers, and I can surely say it won’t be the last: I already added her other books on my TBR, and I can’t wait to start them.

“The Bewitching” was the most fascinating surprise: I started it while having breakfast -a habit of mine, since it takes me at least half an hour to sip my coffee-, but fast forward many, many hours later, it’s dark outside and I’ve reached the acknowledgments without even realizing it.
That alone is nothing new, as I often read a book in one sitting…the thing is, tomorrow I have a REALLY IMPORTANT EXAM.
Now, did I study and revise what I had to? No.
But did I find a 5-star book and a potentially new favourite author? Yes.
So I guess all's well that ends well.
That should help you understand how captured I was with Moreno-Garcia’s work.

Writing a multigenerational book isn’t the easiest task, because most of the time one of the timeline is more important than the other/s, resulting in one timeline being the focus of the story, and the other being the one the reader gets bored with.
“The Bewitching” follows three different women, all somehow intertwined with each other, and I loved every single one of them. I was never bored or waiting for the other timeline to come, as it sometimes happens to me.

The writing style was descriptive but smooth, whimsical and suspenseful, making it impossible to put the book down. The atmosphere was so vivid, and the tension was tangible throughout all the 300+ pages. There was something dangerous lurking in the shadows, the reader could feel it at all times, it was both fascinating and scary.
I appreciated the characters, well written and characterized, I won’t forget them easily.
The dialogues were perfect!! and that’s not something granted lately, I almost always find dialogues unrealistic and forced, but that was not the case.

The plot was slow-paced, but that just made me appreciate it even more. Despite it not being full of plot twists, I was completely captured. I think everything happened at the right time.
I anticipated the ending, but that didn’t make me love it less.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for access to this advanced reader copy. "The Bewitching" was an absolute pleasure to read, and in all honestly, I could not put it down. All timelines and characters are engaging, interesting and the end of every chapter leaves you wanting more. The pacing is perfect, you're more likely than not to fall in love with the characters, the story is very original, and the worldbuilding is exquisite. I'd highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy folk horror, the supernatural, mysteries, and timelines that intertwine the past and the present.

Some content warnings I can think of from the top of my head: Blood, mutilation, animal death, self-harm, child abuse, classism, incest.

The Bewitching is the sort of story that makes you want to simultaneously read it in one sitting and slowly wade through the pages to stay in those worlds as long as possible ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Bewitching is absolutely mesmerizing. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a master of historical fiction and magical-realism In The Bewitching she seamlessly adds multiple perspectives, telling three separate stories from three different times. .

A curse from the 1890s, a missing woman from the 1930s and a grad student in the 1990s weave their experiences as separate stories until an amazing realization crashes all three together to stop a sinister being.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Del Rey for the ARC. I greatly appreciate it!

As someone who studies H.P. Lovecraft (as a profession) and who actually knows the person this book is dedicated to, I had some difficulty unwinding and enjoying the story for its entertainment value. My mind kept veering toward “work mode”. With that being said, I really enjoyed the story, and thought it was uniquely presented.

Several instances the three POVs felt a bit excessive, and sometimes I even forgot whose POV I was on when I took extended breaks from the book. Yet, once the suspense began to build, it got a whole lot easier following along. “The Bewitching” has all the hallmarks of a typical Silvia Moreno-Garcia book, and it’s worth checking out!

Pure magic—dark, seductive, and completely unputdownable. It’s the best book I’ve read in a while. The mystery surrounding the disappearances kept me enthralled. If longing and heartbreak had a voice, it would sing through these pages. I was enchanted from start to finish.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7191526094

Loved this - spooky, atmospheric, a page turner. The suspense built up brilliantly across the three interwoven timelines and I wanted to find out what happened in each of them. My third book by this author and all have been great.

Thanks to her, the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Lush, haunting, and dripping with dark academia horror: this book absolutely consumed me.

This is the kind of gothic horror that lingers in your bones. A story that spans decades, three formidable women, and a creeping sense of something watching from the shadows? Perfection.

Minerva’s journey as a graduate student uncovering the eerie truths behind Beatrice Tremblay’s life—and the sinister inspiration for The Vanishing, felt like peeling back layers of a cursed manuscript. Every discovery deepened the dread, and as the novel wove its spell through the past (Nana Alba’s terrifying childhood in 1900s Mexico) and the Great Depression (Tremblay’s unsettling obsession with her vanished roommate), the pieces started falling into place too neatly. That’s when you realize: the horror hasn’t been confined to history. It’s still lurking.

The atmosphere is stunning—rain-slicked streets, candlelit dormitories, libraries filled with forgotten knowledge. It’s dark academia at its finest, but with an added sense of dread that makes you want to check over your shoulder. The writing is immersive, and the way witchcraft pulses through the narrative, both metaphorically and literally—is chef’s kiss.

This is one of those books that gets under your skin, where horror and history twist together until you’re not sure which one is more terrifying. If you love Mexican Gothic or The Shadow of the Wind, you need to read this.

Absolutely chilling. Absolutely brilliant.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia has another gothic story for those that loved Mexican Gothic and The Daughter of Dr. Moreau. Even after finishing The Bewitching, the storyline continues to haunt my thoughts.
This story covers 3 generations tied together by the concept of witches in South American folklore. These are not witches in the style of European or North American folklore. They are darker and more insidious. I hesitate to say more because I do not want to spoil the suspense of the story, but it gripped me in the beginning and starting half-way through, I could not read it close to bedtime.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this excellent e-galley.

This was my first eyeball read for a Silvia Moreno-Garcia book, and something about reading it in this format made it just a touch more eerie. I loved it. The Bewitching really leans into the dangers and horrors of the unseen. A strange sense that something is amiss, but you don't know how to explain it or how to convince others that you know danger is following you. How exactly do you "prove" that you're not losing your mind when some unseen specter is haunting you? The only way forward is to live through it. Moreno-Garcia is so incredibly adept at slowly building plot points and tension and interspersing moments of high action and violence to keep a reader on their toes. You can see similar pacing in books like Certain Dark Things and Mexican Gothic - the two other books I have read by SMG. As a novice and very casual reader of thriller / horror genre fiction, I did not anticipate who the villain/monster in either the 1934 or 1998 points of view.

It's interesting how the varying points of view and time periods all hint at Moreno-Garcia's fascination and exploration of themes: witchcraft, the occult, female horror writers, Mexican folklore, and historical world building. On that last point, each of the time periods are carefully crafted and highly descriptive, making it easier to envision the scenes on page. At times it was just a touch excessive but that was my only complaint.

Read if you are in the mood for:
Gothic horror / gothic fiction
Varying POV chapters
Historical adjacent (1908, 1934, 1998)
Slow build plotting
Mexican folklore

CW/TW: grooming, incest, SA, gore.

This was hands down my most anticipated release of 2025, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia delivered a masterfully crafted horror that exceeded every expectation. Weaving together three timelines - 1908 Mexico, 1930s New England, and 1990s academia - she creates an intricate tapestry of witchcraft, family secrets, and spine-tingling suspense. The way she blends Mexican and New England folklore is absolutely brilliant, creating something fresh and utterly captivating in the horror landscape.

While some readers might find the pacing slow in the first half, the atmosphere Moreno-Garcia builds is deliciously creepy, making every seemingly quiet moment feel loaded with tension. Though I could predict certain reveals early on, it didn't diminish my enjoyment - if anything, watching these three women navigate the darkness closing in around them had me staying up way too late turning pages. Of the three storylines, Alba's 1908 narrative particularly shines, though all three heroines bring something unique and compelling to this bewitching tale.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Another great read from the author of Mexican Gothic. Set in both Mexico and New England, this is a book featuring strong female protagonists in three separate timelines. Each is faced with evil and witchcraft and the author does a fine job of connecting all of the storylines.

I absolutely loved this book! Silvia Moreno-Garcia never disappoints, and The Bewitching is yet another masterpiece that had me completely hooked from start to finish.

The story unfolds across three timelines, each one adding layers of mystery, history, and horror. Minerva, a graduate student in the 1990s, is researching her favorite horror writer, Beatrice Tremblay. But as she digs deeper, she discovers that Tremblay’s most famous novel was inspired by something terrifyingly real—a disappearance from the Great Depression era that might still be casting its shadow today. On top of that, Minerva can’t shake the eerie feeling that her great-grandmother Alba’s old stories of witches in early 1900s Mexico are somehow connected to everything she’s uncovering.

This book was so atmospheric and suspenseful! I was completely drawn in by the eerie, almost dreamlike quality of the writing. The three timelines wove together beautifully, and I loved how the different perspectives built up the mystery piece by piece. The characters—especially Minerva, Tremblay, and Alba—felt so real, and I was invested in their stories from the very beginning.

I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. The blend of supernatural horror, historical fiction, and gothic suspense was perfection, and the tension kept me on edge until the very end. If you love books that are immersive, mysterious, and just the right amount of unsettling, The Bewitching is an absolute must-read!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Silvia Moreno=Garcia just really has a way with language and atmosphere that is unmatched. Unfortunately, my brain does not feel smart enough to read her works. I wanted to try this one because it came highly recommended, but it just wasn't for me. I do think other Silvia Moreno Garcia fans will not be disappointed though.

A story of witchcraft set in three different time periods, the early 1900s, the 1930s, and the 1990s. and two locations, rural Mexico and Massachusetts that become connected when Minerva, a graduate student, who studies the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, a little known author of macabre tales. Minerva’s great-grandmother told her stories of frightening witches when she was a young woman in rural Mexico. Minerva finds eerie similarities in her research of Beatrice Tremblay from the 1930s, her great grandmother stories, and what she is experiencing in the 1990s. Told in alternate narratives.

I really enjoyed this book as I did Mexican Gothic. Silvia Moreno-Garcia knows how to write a good horror story that isn’t too scary and I like her settings. I will continue reading her books.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the advanced reader’s copy of the book.

I will start with a preface that is - I don’t like scary media. I am so easily scared and it lasts a long time and fucks up my already busted sleep schedule. However I will make an exception for a few authors that I know will explain the phenomenon in a way that I will no longer find it scary and Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of those. I definitely stalled out a bit at 60% because I was sure the next chapter is where the spooky really got going and I was absolutely correct, that next chapter was so spooky. But I’d given myself enough time to keep going and get to the answers. As always, the book would feel slow if you’re a proper horror-reader but as someone who likes a lot of classic mysteries, the pacing felt right for the story.

A brilliant and riveting read from Moreno Garcia. She is fast becoming a failsafe author who brings spooky, fantasy vibes to life with Latina pizzazz. The multi generational storytelling really struck chords and rounded up beautifully across time. The book left me curious about the genre and authors it paid homage too. Would love to recommend it to people.

Gracias a Netgalley por el acceso para leer de nuevo a mi favorita

Desde el principio me tenía atrapada y si están acostumbrados a la escritura de Silvia saben que el ritmo empieza de menos a más

Tres mujeres y tres historias que contar, siempre dándonos grandes personajes

Tenemos brujas y una gran historia que no podrán soltar hasta el final

Grande Silvia

This book was intriguing, captivating, and much like its title, bewitching. I love Silvia Moreno-Garcia's writing style - it is so engaging and every chapter left me desperate to know more. I enjoyed the multiple narrators and timelines and it was so satisfying at the end when the connections between them were explored. Each narrator was fun to read and the elements of magic and witches were unlike anything I've ever read before. An excellent read! Perfect for horror lovers as well as those who may be a bit more squeamish.