The 22 Best Books About Witches For Adults, Teens, and Budding Practitioners – Oprah Mag

Temi Oyeyola

Once the costumes are ready and the snacks are made, there's only one thing left to do to celebrate Halloween: Curl up with a spooky book. While vampires and werewolves certainly make for great (if a bit terrifying) characters, our favorite genre is books about witches. Ranging from fiction to nonfiction, these narratives all have one thing in common: They feature strong, defiant women, and the tight-knit communities that sustain them.

Read enough witch books and you may want to become one yourself, which happened to Alex Mar when she was researching her book Witches of America. Luckily, there's a witch book for that, too: Witchery, by Juliet Diaz, is an introduction to spells, altar-making, and more. Or, perhaps you'd rather read about women learning to harness their powers, like the Owens sisters in Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic or Sunny Nwauze in Akata Witch. In that case, check out coming-of-age stories found in YA fare like The Year of the Witching, or adult books like Anne Rice's epic Lives of the Mayfair Witches series. Tweens brave enough can read Roald Dahl's famously scary book The Witches.

Set across time and space, from Salem to New Orleans, these books about witches will captivate you. Look out for some cameos from wizards and vampires, as well.

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The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

The Mercies isshaped around a kernel of a harrowing true story:Following a terrible storm, the women ofVard, a town in the far reaches of Norway, are left without men. Self-sufficient, the women are able to sustain their communityperhapstoowell. Because soon, a visitor accuses them of being witches.TheMerciesis about the weight of the word "witch," and the brutal punishment it carried for centuries.

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YA Book

Akata Witch Nnedi Okorafor

From one of the leading voices in sci-fi, comes a YA series about a one-of-a-kind witch. Sunny Nwazue was born in Nigeria, but raised in the U.S. At the age of 12, she returns to her homeland and awakens her power, learning that her albinism masks her spiritual gifts.

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A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

ReadingA Discovery of Witchesis as magical an experience as us non-witches might achieve. In an Oxford library,scholar and reluctant witchDiana Bishopfinds evidence of another world. She has a vampire geneticist as her guide. Just go with it!Watch the gripping TV show afterwards, a mix of sci-fi and history that will appeal to fans ofOutlander.

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Nonfiction

Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau by Martha Ward

Marie Laveau was portrayed by Angela Bassett in the seriesAmerican Horror Story: Coven. This nonfiction book takes a deep dive intobothMarie Laveaus, a mother-daughter duo around whom gossip, rumors, and legend gathered in 19th-century New Orleans. To this day, their legacy persistsin New Orleans' FrenchQuarter. ReadVoodoo Queento learn how their practices sustained a community.

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YA Book

The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams

The title says it all. In this book,the charm of Netflix'sBabysitter's Clubreboot, meetsthe irreverent spirit ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer,meets witches. Kate William's YA debut focuses on Esme and Cassandra, two teenage babysitters who need to use their newly awakened witchy powers to protect their kidsand the world.

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Nonfiction

Initiated: Memoir of a Witch by Amanda Yates Garcia

Ever wonder what it must be like to be a witch?Initiatedis a revealing coming-of-age story of one woman's journey discovering her inner witch. To be a witch, according tothis memoir, is to be in-tune with your body, spirit, and nature.

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YA Book

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

The Witch of Blackbird Pondis a Newberry Award-winningbook that has retained its power long after its publication.16 year-old Katherine Tyler is uprooted from her home in Barbados to live in a Puritan Massachusetts, where the locals interpret her difference as "witchiness." The book emphasizes the box that women were put into.

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Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

Books about witches often end up being books about family legacy, sisterhood, and the inter-generational bonds that tie us together.Practical Magic, about two sisters learning the ways of their family from their eccentric aunts, is no exception.Follow Alice Hoffman's bestsellingbook up with the enchanting 1998 movie adaptation, starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman.

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Nonfiction

Witchery: Embrace the Witch Within by Juliet Diaz

Are you looking to embrace the inner witch?Witcheryis a first step. Written by a third-generation witch and owner of a witch school,Witcheryhastangible tips for unlocking your powersfrom altars to spells.

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Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

$8.99

Good Omens is laugh-out-loud funny, irreverent, warm, and wise, all at onceno wonder it's considered a modern classic. In the 16th century,Agnes Nutter, a witch and an outcast, predicts the end of the world. In the present day,anangel and a demon try to find the loophole to save humanity.The book made for a delightfulone-season showstarring David Tennant and Michael Sheen as the eternal beings in question.

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YA Book

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

Immanuelle Moore grows up in the restrictive religious community of Bethel, where she's cut off from knowing the truth of how she came to bea story that involves witches, runes, and a craving for liberation.Is it set in the far future? In another world?In a cult?It doesn't matter: The Year of the Witchingtells a universal, timeless story about women's power.

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Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth

To callPlain Bad Heroinesa book simplifies what itreallyisa whirlwind, 365-degree sensory experience. The novel is about many things at once: The legends of ahaunted school, the making of a movie about said legend, and the writing oftwo influential books. Witches hang in the periphery, as it's a book concerned with women who deviate from the norm, and whatever magic they may face.

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The Witches by Roald Dahl

$7.99

If this book terrified you as a child, you're not alone. Roald Dahl's book is for children, but it's creepy enough to give grown adults nightmares. Like many fairy tales,The Witchesis fundamentally a fable about a kid's first encounter with the horrors of the outside world.The terrors come in the form of menacing witches.

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The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

$9.59

Witches appear throughout Anne Rice's novels, but they're the centerpiece of herLives of Mayfair Witchesseries.Brace yourself:This New Orleans-set book, which spans 300 years and 1,000 pages,is a non-stop cavalcade of actionsome of it, quite shocking.

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YA

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Crdova

Labyrinth Lostis a YA fantasy novel grounded in thebrujeria tradition. After her entire family disappears during a ceremony gone awry,Alex ventures to Los Lagos, a place in-between realms, to retrieve them. TheBrooklyn Brujaseries continues the adventure.

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The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent

$15.00

Kathleen Kent explored the dark secrets buried within her own family tree for this book, set amid the Salem Witch Trials. As hysteria mounts in their community, mother and daughterMartha and SarahCarrier seek to speak reason. Their lives and lineage are at stake.The Heretic's Daughtercaptures the claustrophobia and horror of this chapter of American history.

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I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Cond

$19.50

Tituba, as readers ofThe Cruciblemay recall, was one of the first women accused of witchcraft in Salem. Taken from her home in the West Indies, Tituba was brought to the Colonies as a slave.The oft-overlooked figure of the Salem Witch Trials gets a story and voice of her own in this book, an early snapshot of life as a Black woman caught amid the hysteria of her white captors.

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The Witches of New York by Ami McKay

Alone, they're lonely and misunderstood women, at odds with the social mores of New York in 1880.Together, they're powerful. A coven, able to rise when society wants to keep them down.The Witches of New Yorkis a witty page-turner about what can happen when a person answers an ad that says:"Respectable Lady Seeks Dependable Shop Girl. Those averse to magic need not apply,"

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A Secret History of Witches by Louise Morgan

TheOrchire women pass along their rituals from one generation to another, fiercely guarding their gifts against a world hostile to their kind of magic. Then comes WWII, a time when the world needstheir kind of magic.

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Nonfiction

Witches of America by Alex Mar

Alex Mar set out to write a comprehensive book about the history of witches in the U.S., and the state of modern witchcraft. She ended up getting pulled into that world herself.Witches of Americablends the personal and the historical.

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The Witch's Daughter by Paula Brackston

As a girl, Elizabeth Anne Hawksmithwitnesses her mother burn after being accused of witchcraft. On that day, Elizabeth awakens her own powersand makes a lifelong enemy. TheWarlock Gideon Masters is determined to get her, as he did her mother,and hasn't let up. Spanning 300 years of history,The Witch's Daughteris astory of immortality, friendship, and a battle forgood and evil.

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Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Vianne and her daughter,Anouk, come to a small town in France with the intention of opening up a chocolate shop. The conservative locals are offended by her whimsical ways, and brand her a witch. Vianne may or may not be a witch, but sheismagicand one truffle at a time, turns the town into a more loving, enchanted place.

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The 22 Best Books About Witches For Adults, Teens, and Budding Practitioners - Oprah Mag

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero