Reading List by Jennie for Halloween 2025

JennieBook Reviews / C+ ReviewsHistorical fiction / Reading lists / Witch Hunts / Witches5 Comments

I read these two books in succession a bit after Halloween – they weren’t exactly spooky season reads, but I had been consuming media about the Salem Witch Trials – among other historical witch trials and hysterias – around the holiday, and a friend suggested these two title to me. (She hadn’t read them but knew of my interest in historical witch trials.)

Beyond the titles bookending each other, there were some notable similarities between The First Witch of Boston and The Last Witch. There were similar (and expected) themes of female oppression and suppression, and of the abject fear that underlay witch hysteria in the Early Modern Period in both the Old World and the New. Also, both stories are loosely based on real historical figures. (Lastly, both novels have mild supernatural elements, which surprised me a bit.)

The First Witch of Boston by Andrea Catalano

The First Witch of Boston opens shortly after Margaret Jones has become the first woman to be found guilty and hanged for witchcraft in 17th century Massachusetts (1648, to be precise). I don’t think I’m spoiling the ending since the book gives it away immediately, and it’s a matter of public record. I did find that this aspect sort of cast a pall over the story in a depressing way – maybe I would’ve been even more bummed to find out in the end that Margaret does not escape this terrible fate, but it affected my reading to know from the beginning that she is doomed.

Anyway, as the book opens, Margaret’s husband Thomas, who is mostly a real mensch, is fleeing the Boston colony and his painful memories when he comes across Margaret’s diary, which recounts how they got to this point. Thomas is a furniture-maker and Margaret is a healer; they are very much in love after decades of marriage. There are tensions in the marriage though – their longing for a child has been unfulfilled and Margaret’s temper and impulsivity sometimes causes issues. They have tried to remake their lives in Boston after a hasty departure from England. There, Margaret had given a tincture containing St. John’s Wort to a noblewoman with “melancholy.” The woman later went into a manic state and murdered her husband. Authorities quickly settled on Margaret as a person to blame so the couple packed up swiftly and headed to Boston.

They’ve has had some success since arriving – made close friends with an older couple, and Thomas’ furniture business is flourishing. But the suspicion and paranoia that later struck Salem has its seeds in Boston, and before long there are murmurs about Margaret. She doesn’t always help herself – as mentioned, she has a temper. That I could accept – it’s a common enough personality trait and Margaret does strive to control it. What made me roll my eyes and honestly lose patience at times with Margaret is that streak of anachronistic modern thought that one so often finds in a character like her. She just can’t *believe* that her superstitious neighbors believe the dumb things they believe, and she can’t stop herself from arguing with them about it.

While I’m sure there were people back then who really did think like Margaret, who were more advanced and less superstitious, my issue is two-fold. First, I have encountered too many of these types in my reading. They feel like Mary Sues in a way – smarter and more advanced than everyone around them. Second, it’s irritating and stressful to read about someone who acts so stupidly when their life is literally on the line and they should know that. I think of Claire in Outlander having the adjust to 18th century mores and even that was annoying at times, but at least she had a reason for it to be an adjustment. In Margaret’s case, this is her world, she’s grown up in it (even if Boston is more puritanical – pun intended – than her previous home in England). There’s just not much reason for her to step in things quite so emphatically as she does.

Once the accusations against Margaret start to coalesce, there’s a certain inevitable logic in the outcome (a wealthy local widow with the hots for Thomas doesn’t help things). It’s a sad ending, of course, leavened slightly by a bittersweet postscript. I wish I had warmed to Margaret more; ultimately I gave this a C+.

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The Last Witch by CJ Cooke

The Last Witch is set over 150 years before The First Witch of Boston, in Innsbruck, Austria, and features actual historical figures: Helena Schueberin, the wife of a wealthy businessman who is accused of witchcraft and Heinrich Kramer, a witchfinder who became infamous for Malleus Maleficarum, a treatise on witches.

The book begins horrifyingly, from the point of view of a 5-year-old girl as she and her mother are led to their execution by fire. I could have done without such a disturbing and graphic depiction; there are unpleasant descriptions of torture through the book but none that had quite the punch of the opening.

Helena Schueberin is childhood friends with the woman killed, and even before she hears of her friend’s terrible demise, her life is troubled. Helena is the wife of a wealthy older businessman, and the marriage is not a happy one. Sebastian is cruel and callous, and the marriage’s lack of an heir several years in displeases him. Eventually he compels Helena to lie with the household footman, Leopold. Which didn’t feel realistic to the character – what man would want his wife to cuckold him and present him with a child that isn’t his? But perhaps the appearance of virility mattered more than the reality of it.

The affair with Leopold is weird anyway because it’s presented as a trite “young woman with old husband gets to experience sexual fulfillment and love with a young, hot guy” scenario. But the relationship is told mostly in the past tense and it feels flat and glossed over. Why have a rather lurid plot point and then make it kind of dull?

Meanwhile, the local bishop, Georg Golser, is introduced to Brother Heinrich Kramer, who has come to root out witches in Innsbruck. It turns out he was responsible for the burning of the mother and child in the opening. Golser is gentle and secretly gay; he frequently has visions of his dead lover, whose death he blames himself for. He takes an instant dislike to the fanatical Kramer, but at the same time he’s wary of going against him too publicly.

Would that Helena had some of the same caution. After Kramer is invited by Sebastian to dine with them, she finds herself unable to hold back her rage, and she castigates Kramer both inside their home and outside in front of witnesses. This, of course, seals her fate as one of Kramer’s targets.

Wikipedia (I know, I know) does note that the real Helena Schueberin disagreed with witch hunter doctrine and spoke out against it and specifically against Kramer. So maybe I’m being too harsh to feel that she’s a bit anachronistic. It’s just that in this book, as in The First Witch of Boston the protagonist seems to be not just unhappy with the society they live in; they feel surprised like a modern day woman might be set down in those worlds. Maybe it’s just that I imagine myself in their shoes, living in those perilous times; I would be terrified of being accused of witchcraft and would most likely keep my opinions to myself. (Cowardly, I know!)

The depiction of Kramer was a bit one-note – he is your typical sexually repressed fanatic who is just a little too villainous. In contrast to The First Witch of Boston, where the fear of witches and witchcraft felt very real, in this book it feels a lot like a superficial excuse to abuse and control women. While I absolutely believe that is at the root of witch hysterias, I also believe that villains like Kramer believed in what they were doing. To be fair, he is portrayed as a true believer, but at the same time there was a mustache-twirling aspect to his character that felt overdone.

The supernatural elements in this book come to the fore at the end, and I didn’t feel they really added to the story. My initial grade for this was a B-, a bit above The First Witch of Boston, but I think I’ll give them both the same grade – C+. In retrospect I think I liked The First Witch of Boston a bit better.

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Jennie

has been an avid if often frustrated romance reader for the past 15 years. In that time she's read a lot of good romances, a few great ones, and, unfortunately, a whole lot of dreck. Many of her favorite authors (Ivory, Kinsale, Gaffney, Williamson, Ibbotson) have moved onto other genres or produce new books only rarely, so she's had to expand her horizons a bit. Newer authors she enjoys include Julie Ann Long, Megan Hart and J.R. Ward, and she eagerly anticipates each new Sookie Stackhouse novel. Strong prose and characterization go a long way with her, though if they are combined with an unusual plot or setting, all the better. When she's not reading romance she can usually be found reading historical non-fiction.

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