This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The Bewitching will be released on July 15, 2025.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s period retelling The Daughter of Doctor Moreau was the biggest pleasant surprise in my 2023 Hugo reading. So when I saw she was releasing a new novel with curses that echo across multiple timelines, I was excited to give The Bewitching a try. 

The Bewitching is separated into three timelines which alternate for the majority of the novel. The most contemporary story is set in 1998, following a Mexican woman in graduate school in New England, digging for fresh information about underappreciated female horror writers from history. One of the past timelines is written in first-person by one of those horror writers, detailing the real-life events that inspired her first novel. The other is set back in rural Hidalgo, following the lead’s great-grandmother growing up on a farm and dreaming of more. In all three timelines, the leads see strange deaths around them and slowly begin to realize they—or, in one case, a close friend—are suffering curses from powerful witches. The only question is whether they will be able to find and thwart the witches before they or their loved ones meet their ends. 

While the main characters of each timeline struggle immensely to uncover the identity of the witches besetting them, this is not primarily a book about puzzling out who is secretly practicing witchcraft. There are ample hints that will likely see the reader putting the pieces together before the characters do. And in two of the three timelines, it’s not even a story about whether the main characters will uncover the witches in time—it’s known from the 90s story that one of the victims will survive and another will disappear without a trace. 

Instead, it’s all about the journey, and Moreno-Garcia manages to construct tense and atmospheric narratives in all three timelines, even the ones in which the final outcome is known. Readers who enjoy Gothic tales should have no problem sinking deep into any of the major settings, all written in a way so as to evoke a strong sense of place while simultaneously in a style that’s remarkably easy to binge. I tore through this in three days—a pace I rarely hit with as many real world responsibilities competing for attention. 

With both prior timelines informing the most recent, there’s a satisfying synergy that truly makes this a novel in three interlocking parts, rather than mostly-disconnected stories tied together only by the antagonist. And all three are equally engaging—there’s rarely a moment in which the reader is compelled to rush through a dull plotline to get back to the intrigue. The ultimate ending is excellent in the way it brings together every timeline and provides an overarching sense of closure, though it did have me wondering about a piece of foreshadowing that feels tailor-made for the climax that never comes good. That said, even if I can nitpick, the buildup is so consistently good that it’s hard to complain too much. 

Overall, if you’re looking for something Gothic and atmospheric, The Bewitching is bound to delight. All three storylines are tense and immersive, with enough weight to keep the reader invested even in the period plotlines where the ultimate endings are known. This one knows exactly what it wants to be and delivers a compelling story that’s easy to binge. 

Recommended if you like: Gothic fiction, period witchiness.

Can I use it for Bingo? It’s hard mode for Author of Color and Stranger in a Strange Land and is Published in 2025. One of the POV characters is LGBTQIA Protagonist, and I insist it is a Book in Parts, even if the parts are mixed up.

Overall rating: 16 of Tar Vol’s 20. Four stars on Goodreads.