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From a feminist retelling of Pride and Prejudice, featuring Lydia Bennet as a witch, to a history of landmark trials and a host of magical wellness titles, 2023 is the year in which witch books will truly cast their spell. No longer a niche market, the titles coming out range from historical fiction to fantasy to self-help. Witches have permeated every corner of the publishing world, as well as our TV screens, with the Netflix Addams Family spin-off hit Wednesday, and a TV adaptation of Anne Rice’s Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy on the way.
So why the fascination now? Witch-hunts raged across Europe and colonial America for more than 400 years, from the 14th to the 18th century, killing thousands, mostly women. Yet while witches have inspired books, films and works of art over the centuries, the literary outpouring has increased noticeably in recent years. From Stacey Halls’ 2019 bestseller The Familiars, to The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, The Manningtree Witches by AK Blakemore and the bumper crop coming this year: Kirsty Logan’s Now She Is Witch, Emilia Hart’s generational tale of female resilience Weyward, Melinda’s Taub’s The Shocking Confessions of Miss Lydia Bennet, Witch, and my own novel, The Witches of Vardø, about the Finnmark witch trials in 1662, to name just a few.
