As the saying goes, you can cut the tension with a knife. If that’s the case, you’ll need an entire machete to slice through the tension, suspense, and scares in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s latest novel, The Bewitching.

The author of the bestselling book, Mexican Gothic, sets her latest tale in New England, with the horror story spanning three different eras. The heroines at the center of each epoch are faced with witchcraft and danger in a multigenerational horror story like no other.

For a long time now, quaint, unsuspecting North East towns have been the settings for unimaginable terrors. It is home to Salem, Massachusetts and its witch trials, Steven King and his fictional town of Derry, Shirley Jackson and her infamous Lottery, and of course, H.P. Lovecraft, who ushered in a new genre of cosmic horror with his fictionalized county. However, Moreno Garcia has undoubtedly made her mark on the genre, standing in a league of her own as she weaves a suspenseful tale rich in both culture and history that spans well beyond the confines of her New England setting.

The story’s three timelines cover Alba’s encounter with witchcraft on her homestead in Mexico in 1908, the disappearance of Virginia ‘Ginny’ Somerset at Stoneridge in 1934, and Stoneridge graduate student Minerva’s investigation into Ginny’s disappearance in 1998. These three different timelines provide not just historical, but also social context to the story.

For young Alba, life in 1908 finds her facing the societal expectations befitting the eldest daughter of marrying age. Betty and Ginny’s collegiate lives in 1934 are set against the backdrop of the Great Depression when homosexuality is still considered taboo and women are admitted to sanitariums for “hysteria.” It is Minerva, in the more modern day timeline on the cusp of the new millennium, who is charged with unraveling Ginny’s mysterious disappearance while making sense of her great-grandmother Alba’s tales of encountering witchcraft as a young girl.

“When I was a young woman, there were still witches,” begins The Bewitching, but make no mistake, these are not the witches you might be familiar with if all you’ve read is The Crucible. Instead, they’re deeply rooted in Mexican folklore – these witches are teyolloquani, the most fearsome and dangerous of brujas who drink the blood of their victims and eat their hearts. In the novel, tales of the teyolloquani are passed down from one generation to the next, keeping their lore alive as modern society seeks to write them off as silly stories told by uncultured country folk.

With this combination of elements, Moreno-Garcia seamlessly weaves Mexican culture and folklore into standard U.S. horror tropes. She is a master not just of igniting the slow-burn read, rich in suspense and terror, but of building stories filled with proud Mexican culture. Her voice is one that not only provides a unique take on the genre but also gives us representation that we so desperately needed.

Latines make up 26% of horror movie audiences, yet only 7% of published authors identify as Latine/Hispanic. Latin America is filled with tales of horror, with oral histories of ghost stories and unknown creatures of terror passed down from generation to generation. Fear is universal, so why can’t our tales be?

When reading Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s work, it is. Her gripping tales of unimaginable horrors have a cultural context that is deeply rooted in Latin American culture and beliefs, powered by her unique but familiar voice.

There are two types of terror – of the unknown and of the known. The unknown is the feeling of being watched when you can’t see anyone there or imagining creatures that go bump in the night. The other fear is of the evil that lurks in a person you know. That something unexplainable that rises in glimpses so brief you could miss it until the monster fully reveals itself – and it’s too late. In Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s latest tale, it is both. And what greater horror story could there be? The familiar and unfamiliar, haunting the narrative just the same.

In The Bewitching, Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes, “A mystery is the most seductive of poisons; it intoxicates the soul.” If that is the case, we are drunk on this latest tale and cannot wait to consume whatever horror she delights to serve us next.

The Bewitching is available as of July 15, 2025.