Recent Reads: 10 Magical Witch Fantasy Books

The Owens sisters confront the challenges of life and love in this bewitching novel from New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman.

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape.

One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic…

On the night Rune’s life changed forever, blood ran in the streets. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating revolution, witches have been diminished from powerful rulers to outcasts ruthlessly hunted due to their waning magic, and Rune must hide what she is.

Spending her days pretending to be nothing more than a vapid young socialite, Rune spends her nights as the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante who rescues her kind from being purged. When a rescue goes wrong, she decides to throw the witch hunters off her scent and gain the intel she desperately needs by courting the handsome Gideon Sharpe – a notorious and unforgiving witch hunter loyal to the revolution – who she can’t help but find herself falling for.

Gideon loathes the decadence and superficiality Rune represents, but when he learns the Crimson Moth has been using Rune’s merchant ships to smuggle renegade witches out of the republic, he inserts himself into her social circles by pretending to court her right back. He soon realizes that beneath her beauty and shallow façade, is someone fiercely intelligent and tender who feels like his perfect match. Except, what if she’s the very villain he’s been hunting?

There is an old tale woven through the mountain town of Woodsmoke about a stranger who appears as the first snow falls in winter, who will disappear without a trace as the frost thaws in spring, leaving a broken heart behind.

Carrie Morgan ran from Woodsmoke ten years ago, and the decision has haunted her ever since. Spending a decade painting and drifting around Europe, she tries to forget her family’s legacy and the friends she left behind. But the Morgan women have always been able to harness the power of the mountains surrounding the town, and their spells—and curses—are sewn into the soil. The mountains, they say, never forget.

Sure enough, when Carrie’s grandmother dies and leaves behind her dilapidated cottage, she returns to renovate—certain she will only be there for one winter. She meets Matthieu as the temperature dips, a newcomer who offers to help refurbish the cottage. Before long, and despite warnings from her great-aunt Cora of the old stories, Carrie finds herself falling for the charming stranger. But when the frost thaws in spring, Matthieu goes missing.

Carrie is convinced he’s real, and he’s in danger. As she fights her way across the mountains to find him, she must confront all the reasons why she left Woodsmoke and decide whether the place she’s spent the last decade running from is the home she’s been searching for.

Meet Thorn Scarhart, a thirty-nine-year-old witch who’s having trouble finding love in the 17th century. Despite the local matchmaker’s efforts and Thorn’s arsenal of powerful love potions, she has yet to fall in love. After the disappearance of her sister and the loss of her mother, Thorn was too caught up in…well, life, to focus on dating. Now, she fears she may have missed her chance.

But, when one of her potion brews backfires spectacularly, Thorn is hurled 350 years into the future, landing in a bustling city where her once-isolated cottage is now a historical museum. While this unexpected leap through time may seem daunting, modern life does have its perks: indoor plumbing, electric kettles, and the world of online dating. At thirty-nine, the odds may not be perfect, but at least they’re not impossible.

With the help of the museum’s new curator—and her charming veterinarian brother—Thorn dives headfirst into the 21st-century dating scene. And as she searches for romance, she might also find herself along the way.

A warm, spellbinding tale about a witch and the secrets her coven has been keeping from her, with echoes of the classic Hades and Persephone story, in the tradition of Practical Magic and Witch of Wild Things.

Hecate Goodwin, Kate to her friends, has curated the perfect life as a hedge witch, living in a secluded cottage with only a black cat for company. She spends her days foraging herbs from the Ipswich forest, gardening, and creating tinctures to sell at the apothecary she owns. Most evenings pass without her speaking to another human being, an arrangement she quite prefers.

Kate’s solitude is thrown into disarray when her older sister, Miranda, reaches out and asks her to host their coven’s annual Halloween gathering. The day marks the beginning of the new year for witches and is also Kate’s birthday. The pressure from her coven to make the evening memorable mounts as the event draws near. To complicate things further, a handsome man from Kate’s past turns up at her cottage, asking for sanctuary. It is Kate’s duty as a hedge witch to honor this request, much to her dismay. Matthew Cypher is no ordinary lost soul–he’s a practitioner of forbidden magic who’s tricked Kate once before, and her guard is up.

As she juggles Matthew’s arrival and the preparations for Halloween, Kate comes across an old tome shrouded in dark magic. She is horrified when she realizes the blood-red inscription is written in familiar handwriting: her recently deceased mother’s. Afraid to even touch the dark magic her mother secretly studied, Kate can turn only to Matthew for help. Her idealized memory of her mother begins to distort, and as she and Matthew grow closer, Kate has to reevaluate whom she can really trust.

A Dark and Secret Magic is a celebration of the Halloween season and a love letter to anyone who drinks pumpkin spice in August and carries the spirit of a witch inside their heart all year long.

My name is Elizabeth Anne Hawksmith, and my age is three hundred and eighty-four years. If you will listen, I will tell you a tale of witches. A tale of magic and love and loss. A story of how simple ignorance breeds fear, and how deadly that fear can be. Let me tell you what it means to be a witch.

In the spring of 1628, the Witchfinder of Wessex finds himself a true Witch. As Bess Hawksmith watches her mother swing from the Hanging Tree she knows that only one man can save her from the same fate: the Warlock Gideon Masters. Secluded at his cottage, Gideon instructs Bess, awakening formidable powers she didn’t know she had. She couldn’t have foreseen that even now, centuries later, he would be hunting her across time, determined to claim payment for saving her life.

In present-day England, Elizabeth has built a quiet life. She has spent the centuries in solitude, moving from place to place, surviving plagues, wars, and the heartbreak that comes with immortality. Her loneliness comes to an abrupt end when she is befriended by a teenage girl called Tegan. Against her better judgment, Elizabeth opens her heart to Tegan and begins teaching her the ways of the Hedge Witch. But will she be able to stand against Gideon—who will stop at nothing to reclaim her soul—in order to protect the girl who has become the daughter she never had?

When a guest dies in the B&B she helps her aunts run, a young witch must rely on some good old-fashioned investigating to clear her aunt’s name in this magical and charming new cozy mystery.

For four hundred years, the Warren witches have used their magic to quietly help the citizens of the sleepy New England town of Evenfall thrive. There’s never been a problem they couldn’t handle. But then Constance Graves–a local known for being argumentative and demanding–dies while staying at the bed and breakfast Brynn Warren maintains with her aunts. At first, it seems like an accident…but it soon becomes clear that there’s something more sinister at work, and Aunt Nora is shaping up to be the prime suspect.

There’s nothing Brynn wants more than to prove Nora’s innocence, and it hurts her to know that even two years ago that might have been easier. Brynn, after all, is a witch of the dead–a witch who can commune with ghosts. Ghosts never remember much about their deaths, but Constance might remember something about her life that would help crack the case. But Brynn hasn’t used her powers since her husband died, and isn’t even sure she still can. Brynn will just have to hope that her aunts’ magic and her own investigative skills will lead her to answers–and maybe back to the gift she once thought herself ready to give up forever.

Practically perfect, in every witch way…

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Rewitched…

Annie Wildwood is practically perfect in every witch way. Her life is a haze of pink, magic and impossibly high standards. But, when she is tasked with mentoring a troubled teenage witch with extraordinary powers, Annie’s charmed existence is quickly thrown into utter chaos…

Set in the same enchanting world as Rewitched, Uncharmed celebrates found family, unconditional love and the joy of swapping perfectionism and people-pleasing for being your true magical self.

Belladonna Blackthorn hasn’t lost her magical spark . . . but she hasn’t seen it in a while, either.

Balancing work at her beloved Lunar Books with protecting it from her toxic boss, who’s running it into the ground, and all the while concealing her witchcraft from the non-witches around her – Belle is burnt out. Perfecting the potential of her magic is the last thing on her mind.

But when her 30th birthday brings a summons from her coven, and a trial that tests her worthiness as a witch, Belle risks losing her magic forever. With the month of October to fix things, and signs that dark forces may be working against her, Belle will need all the help she can get – from the women in her life, from an unlikely mentor figure, and even an (infuriatingly handsome) watchman who’s sworn to protect her . . .

With found family, slow burn romance, and an uplifting message about self-love, this is the cosy, autumnal read that you’ve been waiting for.