Thank you, NetGalley, Hester Fox, and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the opportunity to read this book. This book will hit shelves everywhere on February 1st, 2022.

I will always and forever read anything that Hester Fox writes. She always delivers with Gothic vibes. In previous books, she took inspiration from classic authors like Edgar Allen Poe and Mary Shelley. A Lullaby for Witches brings in the lore of witches from the North-Eastern part of the United States, including Salem, Massachusetts. Augusta has been working tours in Salem and comes home to a dwindling relationship. So things begin to look up when she gets a job at a small museum in Tynemouth called Harlowe House. She immediately connects with the house and the woman who possibly lived there centuries before. Her name is Margaret Harlowe and she is known for being a wild one in a wealthy family. But soon, rumors begin that she practices witchcraft. She finds herself in trouble and then betrayed by those she loves and vengeance and a hunger for all that she has lost will span time itself.

Trigger Warnings: emotional and physical abuse, murder

I can honestly say I had no idea where this book was going in the beginning. The beginning gives the impression of time travel. Boy, was I wrong! I loved Augusta and I think many women and men can relate to her. She finds herself in a relationship and a job that puts her down and makes her invisible. She loses her self-confidence. When people show true concern and care, she doesn’t know how to respond. Those of us who have been in her shoes, know the emotional toll that takes on a person. Then add a ghost that is up to no good.

The pace does drag a bit. There is a lot of time spent on Augusta’s research about the Harlowe family and her search for Margaret. –But I actually enjoyed that part. It was one of my favorite things to do in college, so I may have a little bias there. Then there are the time-jumps and the switching of points-of-view which didn’t come together all that smoothly. But the tie to history is everything. The ghosts of the past and the people trying to study them are just fascinating, even if it is fiction. I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars!