Synopsis:

Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches”: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.

In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.

Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.

Review:

Three women from three different times, each haunted by something sinister.. witches. These witches are unlike those you may be familiar with. They are much, much darker.

Alba lives in 1908, where her father has passed away and her brother has gone missing. She is convinced that something malevolent is behind it all and that her family is cursed.
Beatrice is a college student in 1934, eventually becoming a horror writer. Her roommate disappears one night, and it haunts her for the rest of her life.
Miverva is Alba’s granddaughter, attending the same college in 1998 that Beatrice did. Obsessed with the horror writer, Minerva seeks out people Beatrice once knew, and finds herself being stalked by a sinister presence.

Moreno-Garcia is always good to turn to for fantastic female characters. All three of our leading women had clear voices, and I think they would be very hard to mix up, even though we do jump back and forth between them all. 

The writing was full of atmosphere and tension, and I was impressed at how each timeline felt so distinct and alive, yet each contained the same underlying feeling of unease. I felt the book was well-paced, with a slow build to a tense and thrilling ending. 

I enjoyed that this was a unique take on witches that I personally haven’t read before. Drawing from Mexican folklore, the witches here don’t sit around cauldrons or live in cottages with cats. These witches are downright terrifying, and you definitely don’t want to come across one on a walk.

Overall, a great read, and Moreno-Garcia has become the writer I turn to when I want to be spooked, but not outright scared. I recommend if you like multi-generational sagas with a good dose of creepy atmosphere.