Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Del Rey, Random House Worlds, Inklore for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. 

The Bewitching by Silvia-Moreno Garcia is a horror title in the spirit of her other books; not overly gory or violent, but deeply reliant on supernatural and uncanny terror. Fans of the author’s previous works will be very pleased with this new addition to her published portfolio. I also got the impression that those who enjoyed Emilia Hart’s Weyward. While the two books are fundamentally different they both have a structure of three parallel stories about magic that converge. 

The book is an exemplary title for those who enjoy dark academia settings. The story, set at a tiny private college in New England has the dark woods, historic buildings, and iconic tense scenes in the library stacks. This contrasts with the hot, bright, Mexican farmstead in the storyline in the early 1900s. The book is richly atmospheric, full of wonderful details that make the setting come alive from the page. 

The pacing of this book is not always even, but it works in the favor of a spooky, tense narrative. At times the scenes are long and seemingly every detail is drawn out, only to quickly expose more twists or exposition. To me the pacing follows a cinematic horror pattern—moments of calm, stretches of suspense and tension and sudden surprises and releases. 

Something that I will comment on in a somewhat neutral manner is that the first chapter, one set in 1998, contains a long and somewhat unrelated information regurgitation about HP Lovecraft. While reading this I thought that this was a portent of some sort of dense and unpleasant book to come. However on reflection later in the book, I came to the understanding that this was actually a great characterization of Minerva by the author. Minerva is a true academic, pedantic and unconcerned with being totally socially aware. It’s a somewhat gummy start to the book, but on a reflection it really creates a great framework of who Minerva is going to be. 

For me, this was another home run from Moreno-Garcia. It’s a wonderful and fresh take on the creepy New England horror cannon that decentralizes it from the Puritans and long-dead Europeans. 

5/5 emphatic stars.