20 Magical, Must-Read Books About Witches and Witchcraft

In the early 1600s, jealous townspeople accuse a widow of being a witch because of her skills with herbal remedies and her children's success. Rivka Galchen’s powerful novel, which draws on historical documents, explores how government-sanctioned superstition and hysteria can take over a community, leaving both families and society at large in shambles.

This 2026 novel is like Six the musical plus witchcraft—so, a perfect book. In it, several of King Henry VIII’s infamous six wives team up to seek revenge against the womanizing monarch, supported by the mystical powers of a secret society called the Hellebore Sisterhood.

Hour of the Witch author Chris Bohjalian also wrote the hit thriller The Flight Attendant. This one may be set about 450 years earlier, but it’s another intensely gripping tale about a woman facing the prospect of prosecution for a crime she may or may not have committed. This time around, that woman is the outspoken Mary Deerfield, who finds herself the subject of town-wide witchcraft rumors, leaving her fighting to find a way to escape both the potentially fatal accusations and her powerful, abusive husband.

Another novel that explores the longstanding ties between witchcraft and female power, Alix E. Harrow’s historical fantasy takes place in the late 1800s and centers on three sisters who live in a world in which witches have ceased to exist since the burnings two centuries before—but who just might need to dig that magic back up to aid in their fight for women’s suffrage.

This contemporary mythology book is a deeply moving retelling of Circe, the ancient sorceress perhaps best known for her run-in with Odysseus in The Odyssey. It paints her as a misunderstood woman caught between two worlds—gods and mortals—who must rely on her own strength and magic to navigate the schemes and wrath of monsters, men, and Olympians.

If you, like me, are obsessed with the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist (and if you’re not, what are you even doing?), this witchy 2026 take on it is for you. It centers on Maeve, a Boston-based witch who uncovers a strange connection between the still-unsolved heist and a botched spell. When an incantation goes wrong, it leads her through one of the missing paintings’ frames and into a creepy other world in search of answers to the many mysteries haunting her.

The first in a charming four-book series about the Owens sisters, Practical Magic introduces readers to the young witches as they come to understand the true magnitude of their powers. And yes, this is the same Practical Magic that inspired the (recently rebooted) 1998 film with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman.

Emilia Hart’s unputdownable debut novel stretches across several generations of witchy women spanning five centuries: from Althea, a woman awaiting trial for witchcraft and murder in the 1600s, to Violet, suffocating under societal constraints in the mid-20th century, to modern-day Kate, who flees an abusive partner for Althea’s hidden cottage and uncovers a new kind of power flowing through her veins.

Before it was a mega-popular (get it?) Broadway musical or two-part cinematic spectacle, Wicked was simply an imaginative prequel to The Wizard of Oz. It’ll take you even deeper into Elphaba and Galinda’s backstories, but be warned: The book is much darker than both the movie and musical. And, if you’re looking for more, rejoicify! Gregory Maguire has written several books that flesh out the land of Oz even more.

The inspiration for another beloved film, John Updike’s 1984 novel, which he described as “about female power,” centers on a trio of women living in Rhode Island in the early ‘70s who have unlocked their powers after divorcing their respective husbands. As a mysterious man comes to town and seduces each member of the coven, however, they soon find their powers taking a particularly dark turn.

The first in Anne Rice’s “Mayfair Chronicles” series, The Witching Hour introduces Rowan Mayfair, a surgeon with supernatural gifts who saves the life of a man who has also acquired otherworldly abilities after his near-death experience. The pair team up to uncover the secrets behind their respective powers in a journey that takes them all over the world and across centuries.

From the hosts of the "Witches of Scotland" podcast comes this fascinating and infuriating dive into Scotland’s 16th-century Witchcraft Act. The declaration set the stage not only for the country’s witch hunts of the time, but also for the many ways in which women around the globe continue to be oppressed by injustice and inequality to this day. 

Noted feminist writer Mona Chollet dove into the (still-ongoing) history of witches in this book, originally published in French in 2018 and translated into English in 2022. It chronicles the three main types of women who were persecuted for witchcraft in centuries past—the independent, the childless, and the elderly—and who continue to face derision and oppression to this day.

Pam Grossman is not only the host of "The Witch Wave" podcast but also a practicing witch, so you know her deep dive into society’s long-lasting obsession with witches is a good one. Alongside anecdotes about her own witchcraft journey, she details the iconography of the witch from the witch burnings to appearances in current-day teen TV shows and horror films, positing throughout that the concept of the witch represents women's power and purpose.

This thoroughly engrossing memoir walks through Orenda Fink’s life with her mother, who struggled with mental illness and addiction and claimed to be a witch who was using her powers to keep Fink’s family safe. Ultimately, Fink sets off on her own to pursue a music career, in which she discovers her own brand of magic, while continuing to be pulled back home by her mother’s spell, magical or otherwise, and by her desire to uncover its root causes.

The first installment in a beloved dark academia series and inspiration for an onscreen adaptation, A Discovery of Witches is a tale of passion, suspense, and self-discovery. It introduces history of science professor Diana Bishop, who’s forced to reckon with the witchy powers she’s long buried within herself. She does so with the help of a vampire geneticist, Matthew Clairmont, to whom she feels an irresistible pull despite the forbidden nature of a witch-vampire romance.

Rom-com queen Meg Cabot kicked off her Witches of West Harbor paranormal romance series with this charming 2023 entry. It centers on Jess, who’s been banned from the World Council of Witches since she was a teenager, but who is suddenly visited 15 years later by a very handsome stranger claiming that only she can save her small town from encroaching sinister forces.

Ellie, a small-town librarian, has a lot to catch up on when she discovers that she’s a witch, with help from the alluring Prospero, a woman with powers of her own who’s suddenly started hanging around the library. In fact, Prospero is on a mission to help Ellie harness her powers so she can work with Prospero to save her magical homeland.

This is perhaps one of the sweetest, coziest romances you’ll ever read. The enchanting novel follows Mika, a witch recruited to a remote old house to teach three young girls how to control their own budding powers. There, she turns out to be the perfect sunshine to grumpy Jamie, the house’s librarian, who’s incredibly protective of the house’s residents but can’t seem to resist letting Mika in.

This small-town rom-com centers on Riley Everett, whose mystical powers surface as soon as she moves into the old house she inherited from her late aunt in Starfall Point. While looking for a coven to join and help her learn more about her new skills, Riley instead gets close to town history buff Edison Held, who’s on a mission of his own to see inside her family’s legendary haunted house.