The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: A Bookclub Review
If you’ve ever missed staying up too late with a book, The Bewitching might be your next late-night companion.
For the inaugural month of Booked Up Founders, our fiction-loving entrepreneur crew dove headfirst into Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Bewitching. This lush, gothic novel winds through witchcraft, generational trauma, and three women coming to terms with it in their own ways.
Our discussion was part book analysis, part personal reflection, and part love letter to rekindling our own creativity.
If you couldn’t join us, you’re in luck because we’re recapping the Booked Up Founder’s October meeting here.
About Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a literary powerhouse. Best known for Mexican Gothic, she’s published more than a dozen novels across fantasy, horror, and historical fiction. Born and raised in Mexico, now based in Canada, she’s also a columnist for The Washington Post and somehow manages to release a new novel almost every year.
When we learned The Bewitching had won the Historical Novel Society’s Editor’s Choice Award, we weren’t surprised. Her writing balances atmosphere and accuracy, mixing the supernatural with the political, always through the lens of women reclaiming their own narratives.
The Story (No Spoilers Here)
Told through three women across three timelines — Alba, Caroline, and Minerva — The Bewitching is a multigenerational gothic tangle of inheritance, secrets, and survival. It’s part ghost story, part historical fiction, and part commentary on how women have been labeled “witches” simply for owning their power.
Readers move from 1908 Mexico to a posh college campus in 1934, and back to that campus again in 1998 (and yes, the Discmans is a supporting character. Each woman faces her own brand of darkness, both supernatural and human.
Book Club Reviews (Light Spoilers)
Our members spanned coasts and countries — from Arizona to Puerto Rico to Minnesota — but nearly everyone agreed: Moreno-Garcia knows how to cast a spell.
Average rating: 3.8 stars
Common reactions: “Creepy,” “beautifully written,” “so atmospheric,” and also “I needed a shower after that uncle scene.”
Many of us were both “grossed out and furious at the uncle,” but also couldn’t stop reading.
Jacquelyn, founder of Waymarks Web Studio, said the story “reminded [her] of old gothic tales like Jane Eyre and Northanger Abbey.”
Lisa, founder of Ascenial confessed she didn’t finish yet but still felt “rekindled” by the experience of reading fiction again: “I forgot how much I missed reading for fun.”
That sentiment echoed through the room. This book club meeting wasn’t just about the story. It was also a major reminder of how good it feels to read something just because.
The Brujería of it All
One of the most powerful parts of the discussion came from Lizmarie, founder of The Creadora, who grew up surrounded by stories of brujería (witchcraft). For her, this book wasn’t just fantasy because it reflected her real cultural traditions.
She explained how, in many Latin American families, the belief in magic isn’t fringe but woven into daily life: cleansing rituals, dreams as omens, and a sense that intuition is power.
“It’s how women made sense of a world that wasn’t made for them,” she said — echoing Simone de Beauvoir’s idea that magic often gave women agency when society didn’t.
When Lizmarie shared her personal cultural perspective, it transformed the book for many of us.
Favorite (and Freakiest) Moments (Spoilers here on out!)
Even among a group of seasoned thriller readers, a few moments made everyone squirm:
Alba and her uncle, Arturo
Unanimously voted “most unsettling.” As Hazel, founder of Hazel Jones Copywriting put it, “I was so mad reading those chapters.”
The death of the cat
An emotional sucker punch, redeemed only by the feline’s ghostly return. (We collectively agreed ghost cats are acceptable.)
Minerva’s final confrontation
A satisfying full-circle ending that flipped fear into empowerment.
Jacquelyn said it best:
“When her grandmother said there were still witches, it was a warning. When Minerva said it, it felt like a declaration. There are still witches—good witches, strong witches, powerful witches, women who can get through the most horrible things. Because we are strong. We’re not weak. We can do it.”
That reinterpretation of the word “witch,” from something to fear into something to own, might be what stayed with us the most.
Themes We Loved (and a Few That Haunted Us)
Survival and Sisterhood
Across timelines, women protect one another, even when history and men fail them.
Legacy and Lineage
Every generation inherits both trauma and strength. The book asks what we choose to carry forward.
Redefining the Witch
Instead of broomsticks and black hats, witches here are survivors, truth-tellers, and women who dare to break cycles.
For those of us juggling business ownership, parenting, and everyday chaos, it hit a little too close to home. How many of us have been called “too much” or “too emotional” when we were simply powerful?
The Founder Takeaway
Here’s a passage that hit close to home for those of us who struggle to promote our businesses while the world literally burns around us. In fact, when we are head-down on marketing our own businesses, it sometimes can feel like shouting into the void.
“Did you always know you wanted to be a scholar?” “Yeah, I think so. Even if I don’t feel like much of one these days. Sometimes it seems pointless. Why write papers that six people are ever going to read about a person who is long dead? How does that benefit the world in any way? I could be doing something more practical, more tangible.”
Just swap scholar with entrepreneur and you’ve captured a feeling many business owners struggle with.
We’re grateful that The Bewitching reminded us why reading fiction matters and grateful to Sylvia Moreno-Garcia for awakening the imagination that fuels our creativity in business.
That’s exactly why Booked Up Founders exists: to help entrepreneurs reconnect with joy.
Looking Ahead
At the end of our discussion, we cheersed our mugs (many boasting pumpkins, obviously, as it was the week of Halloween), waved goodbye over Zoom, and went off to our next meeting as busy founders…back into work mode.
Stories like these remind us why we started this community in the first place. To read, to rest, and to remember that joy is not a distraction from our work, but the foundation of it.
Our November theme: Cozy Cottagecore AKA the bookish equivalent of curling up with tea and a chunky knit blanket.
See you next month, Founders.
From your favorite witchy Booked Up Founder co-founders,
