Birth of the Witch by Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts has been giving her readers the pleasure of her great imagination and fabulous characters since the eighties. She has an uncanny ability to blend romance, suspense and magic in her storytelling, and the Birth of the Witch carries on that tradition.

 

            First of a proposed trilogy, Birth of the Witch begins with the witchcraft “trials” of the late 1600s. Neve McShane, an orphan indentured to a wealthy family, is accused and convicted of witchcraft, though of course she was not a witch. As she is carted off to the gallows, actual witches condemned to the same fate, try to save the innocent girl by transferring power to her, with the help of a young boy, also a witch, who witnessed the horror unfolding.

            Because their plan succeeded, the three women are reunited, life after life, each time closer to solving the mystery of the origin of witches.

            Caden Quinn, the kind boy who helped save Neve, spends his lifetimes restless, trying to fulfill his own destiny. Only when they arrive at the present do the two realize they are star crossed, both tasked with defeating evil.

            The cliffhanger ending of this first book guarantees that the next two will be as eagerly devoured. Birth of the Witch will be released November 17, 2026, by St. Martin’s Press. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.