You know I love a cozy book about witches but I also enjoy my witches nightmarish and fueled by vengeance. Who doesn’t? There are plenty of books that counter the narrative that witches are Satan’s brood out to ruin your wholesome harvest festival, splitting the sky with their mad cackles, slicking up their broomsticks with baby fat. The book I’m recommending says, “¿Por qué no los dos?” Why not portray a witch with good intentions and a good heart alongside nightmare witches ready to exact most gruesome revenge? Witches contain multitudes, and sometimes the wrath comes with good reason…

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson We meet Immanuelle in the fictional town of Bethel, which may feel familiar to armchair historians of the Salem Witch Trials with its puritanical, church-centered culture. But Bethel’s facade of purity belies its ugly history and practices, and witches play a major if hushed-up role. The sheeple of Bethel don’t know it, but Immanuelle, daughter of a woman who made an unlikely escape from the Darkwood where Lillith and her brood are said to dwell and whose final act in life was giving birth to Imannuelle, is poised to fling open the curtain on the town’s history and treachery.

Immanuelle doesn’t have it easy for many reasons, including the details of her birth, her mother’s legacy, and the fact that she’s dark-skinned like all those shunned to the outskirts of town. Because she knows she’s different in ways she can’t hide, she tries to live by the Prophet’s law for her family and for her own safety. The consequences of straying from the flock are dire, but there are certain things Immanuelle can’t deny. Like the pull of the woods, and the questions that come unbidden about who is and isn’t protected by the powers that be in Bethel. One book and one encounter throw Immanuelle’s life into chaos, forcing her to finally look back and uncover the nature of her own existence and the brutal curses that wait in the wings for Bethel.

Word to the squeamish–this book is blood- and gore-filled, explicitly violent, and comes with a lot of trigger warnings. The horrors of this story are as much about the consequences of being complicit in atrocities as they are about demonic forces on the attack. This is a good pick for fans of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible on the lookout for witchy fiction with a historical feel and a diverse cast of characters.