I really wanted to like this book. I generally love historical fiction, and the witches story seemed really interesting. However, the book didn't deliver on the premise, and the writing just wasn't very interesting. I couldn't finish it, I'm sorry.

Thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I could read books like this forever. Strong female characters, epic family sagas AND witches. What more do you need?

A Secret History of Witches is really a story of mothers and daughters. The book spans several generations, beginning in a time when the burning of suspected witches was still commonplace. Each generation finds ways to navigate their gift, and pass it on to their daughter.

This book actually is making me so mad. I got more than half way through and wanted to rip my eyes out. Every generation just used their magic to get a man or to get pregnant. Really? That's the first thing you wanna do when you come into your magical powers? Really?

The secret history of witches spans multi generations so the thread of the story is the theme rather than the people themselves. I enjoy this kind of saga if I feel the characters are interesting and have brought something new to the story.

I found though that we probably had a couple of extra generations here that didn't add much of note to the plot. I don't really remember the generations between Nanette and Veronica except for "lady" Irene.

It's unfortunate because the novel started off really strongly with a powerful witch Ursule who died to protect the rest of her family when they were being persecuted. The family then relocates to England where the female descendants were still gifted with the power in some ways but didn't seem to be using it for much, good or bad. They all seemed to be afraid of the men in the family or at least they bowed to their wishes in that they hid their powers from the world. There was of course a need for some secrecy, they didn't want to be caught again but it seems like they were a subdued version of what they could have been.

There were only two women that stood out for me. Irene, though the epitomy of unpleasant, at least she decided to use her powers to make her own decisions and Veronica, who quietly found a way to use her own for the greater good.

There were some wonderful scenes that stood out and characters I clung to and overall I got pleasing satisfaction from the story- I just wish that each generation had brought something more impactful.


Thank you to Orbit Books for our review copy. All opinions are our own.

I love reading pretty much anything with witchcraft or the occult history. It happens to be one of my guilty pleasures. Not that it really helps to know all this history since it's not really great table conversation at parties.

I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was interesting and quite fast paced without getting too caught up in all the details of the history of the topic.

I would have this sitting on my shelf for a quick reference guide. Definitely.

Wow. I cannot say enough about this novel. I’ve always loved books about witches but more so in the form of magic realism or historical novels.

A Secret History Of Witches Gabe me both and so much more. In this novel we get to know theee generations of a family. All of the women witches which is passed down from mother to daughter. How Louisa Morgan was disciplined enough to make this a 700 page book is beyond me. We get to know each generation intimately and in great detail but never, EVER, in that long drawn out way some of some “sweeping” dramas.

While each women is different and not all likable I missed them all when the book was over.

A Secret History of Witches tells the tale of five generations of witches in a gypsy family. Mothers pass the gift to their daughters. They are persecuted and have to hide their powers from others. Spanning the time from the early 1800s to WW2, the book is divided into five sections, one for each of the five Orchiere family witches -- Nanette, Ursule, Irene, Morwen and Veronica.



This book was at times a little too slow moving, but there is such a strong mother-daughter love through each generation that I felt that emotion was almost more important than the magic. The family grimoire and scrying stone speak differently to each generation as they receive their powers at puberty.



All in all, I enjoyed this book. At times, the plot moved along a bit slowly and I felt the ending was a bit lack-luster, even abrupt. But it didn't really hurt my enjoyment of the overall story.....the characters, their love for each other, and how the passed down power effected them all a bit differently was enough to keep me reading. What the story lacks in action, it makes up for in emotion and a sense of Family passed down through generations. Normally, I tend to not like stories that span multiple generations because the character/time/generation changes can seem abrupt or some portions of the story can be left unresolved. I didn't feel that way about this book, except at the very end. I felt this book was a nice mix of historical fiction and fantasy. I would definitely read more by this author.



The cover art is fantastic!



**I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from Orbit Books via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

A lovely multi-generational saga of a family of witches, with plenty of drama, familiars, and just a touch of magic. This book will probably appeal mostly to those who enjoy historical family dramas. I prefer a little more magic to my witchy stories.

I usually love witch books, so I was hoping to like this one. But I didn’t care for the multigenerational storytelling. It was okay, but not my cup of tea.

I loved this book. I'm gonna be buying a physical copy to lend out to friends!

I really enjoyed this book. Good character developement, very easy to understand and entertaining. In this book we take a journey with witches, both older and younger. We learn about their lives and things they dealt with. Each part of the book even when told from different perspectives was engaging. I have recommended this book to a few friends. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

Loved every Word! I found it to be a short read but a lovely read

I love a good witch story and this one, while not in my top favorites, did not disappoint. I liked the way the story was told throughout several generations of a family of witches. It added to the story to see how the choices and actions of one generation not only affected their lives, but set up for the next generation as well. There were good characters that drew you into the story and made you care what happened to them. I enjoyed the different personalities and how each chose to use magic and its powers, some selfishly and others resisting it for the good of others.

It was a night shrouded in dense clouds in the year 1821 when the grizzled and gray Ursule Orchiére realized that her family was not safe. Urging her granddaughters and their husbands along a gritty path with the overlapping waves of an uneasy ocean guiding their way, Ursule tried to spirit her loved ones as far away from the town as she could. For in that town, they were beginning to burn witches.

As the leader of the medieval Romani clan, Ursule had a lot to protect. A line of witches, their power passed down from daughter to daughter, is a precious thing and something that must be cultivated through the art of ceremonial charms and gatherings, and must be protected at all costs. Armed with her mysterious scrying stone and the oaken walking stick that emits a power only she can wield, Ursule casts a spell to hide the coven from those who hunt them. Using all of the force she can muster, Ursule projects everything she inside of her into weaving a charm of mystic secrecy and protection and as a result, she depletes herself down to the very core. Her last instructions to her clan is to head to a house beyond the seas and above a cliff; a house with a thatched roof in need of many repairs. The rising moor behind it will hold more for the Orchiére women than she can describe in her last moments on Earth, but Ursule urges her granddaughters to blindly push on ahead to this place of hidden sanctuary . . . and to get as far away from men like the evil Father Bernard as they can get.

It is Nanette who finds her grand-mère in the morning when the sun first peeks from the clouds; the old woman’s weathered and wrinkled skin is cold as ice. She has passed from this world and on to the next, and although Nanette worries that they cannot possibly move ahead without the guidance of their leader, the Orchiére women must persevere.

A Secret History of Witches is a study of five generations of women who must live their true lives in absolute secrecy. A line of witches descending from the powerful blood of the Romani, the book chronicles the lives of five individual women, their ascent into their own personal powers, and the choices they make with their new burden .

Nanette, the granddaughter of Ursule is the only one of her clan who chooses to mix and mingle with anyone outside of Orchiére Farm. She’s watched her older sisters move on with their lives as if nothing ever happened that night on the dusky beach where they left their grand-mère, pulling together to mend the brokenness that was the farm where they now make their living. Her sisters put the past firmly behind them as soundly as one shuts a door with a bolt, and only live for the tasks around their home and life with their husbands. But the death of her grand-mère has stuck with Nanette, and she wonders if perhaps there is an undercurrent of the magic she witnessed that night still flickering around her. Her visits to the village each week to sale the family’s homemade goods have begun to grow uneasy, as the eyes of the strict and callous Father Bernard seem to watch her every step. She doesn’t know why he’s always staring at her, but she has heard the whisperings of the word “witch” in conjunction with her family. As the years go by and Nanette grows older, she becomes acutely aware of the peculiar goings-on around her farm. Her sisters sneak out in the dead of night and make their way up the moor regularly, and Nanette dreams of the day she can finally join them in whatever it is that they get up to there. When the night finally arrives, she steals away into the blackness along with the others and finds herself in a cave, watching the elder sisters chant and perform curious ceremonies around a scrying stone set upon an altar. Everyone is surprised when Ursule’s old crystal responds to Nanette, and it is through the youngest of the clan that the power of the Romani witches will endure.

Ursule was begot by magic. After conjuring a handsome Irishman for an evening spent in pure pleasure, a daughter was born to Nanette. Her love of the land comes from some place deep within her and she cannot ever imagine leaving the confines of Orchiére Farm, a place where she has spent hours cultivating the gardens with her own hands and tending to the animals with loving care. Ursule grows into a woman as the aunts around her pass away to death, and she watches her mother Nanette furrow her brows with worry at the ending of the line of power. After Ursule marries a solid man from down the way, she finds herself yearning for a child to continue the heritage of witchcraft. But after she is unable to conceive or convince her husband that it is even worth trying, she becomes desperate. After a torrid affair with a beautiful traveling troubadour finally results in finding herself with child, Ursule knows she must act fast to hide the infidelity from her husband. Finding a spell in her great-grandmother’s tattered grimoire, she creates a potion sure to remedy the problem. But all backfires on Ursule when her husband calls her mother out for a witch and gets the village involved. With danger at her heels, Ursule flees her beloved farm on the back of her horse, making her way to safer pastures with a baby growing in her belly.

Iréne hates her life. Yearning and fervently dreaming for a comfortable existence as a lady of the manor instead of as a servant girl, Iréne becomes difficult to live with. Her mother Ursule will never be able to scrub the dirt from her fingernails or ever have a clean head of hair; she lives to work in the gardens that lie below the grand home they are servants to. Refusing to follow in her mother’s meager footsteps, Iréne dedicates her time and energy in to using the newfound power passed down to her for her own personal gain. After bewitching a rich older man with a potion and forcing him into marriage with her, she steals away with her mother’s scrying stone and the ancient grimoire, thankful to put the life of a peasant behind her.

Morwen is nothing like her mother Irêne. She is sweet and kind and beloved by all who know her. After coming across a curious bedraggled stranger in the ruins of a nearby castle, she has questions that only her cold and aloof mother can answer. Forcing her way into her mother’s presence is not easy, and it is troubling to Morwen to find that Iréne seems to know more than she should be able to. Startled and horrified to find that her mother is a witch who spies on her every move, Morwen has to think fast. Forcing her mother into spilling the tale of their family’s lineage and trusting her with the powers of the stone and book, Morwen is unfortunately more confused than ever. The woman living in the castle ruins claims to be her grandmother – but is that possible? When Morwen’s father begins proceedings to enter her into marriage with a much older man and without her own permission, Morwen must make a choice that will either be a staggering success or an abysmal failure.

Veronica, daughter of Morwen, has visions that frighten her. Closing her eyes, she can see her sweet, tender brother falling in battle. Seeking out the man who has always treated her like a daughter, Veronica is told a tale of the immense power that runs in her very veins and of her place in the Orchiére lineage. And as the war around them begins to take its nasty toll and Hitler infiltrates the sanctity of the countryside, Veronica will join forces with another band of witches and work to bring down a monster. But will her power destroy everything around her, including her chances at a love of her own?

Spanning over a century and five generations of strong, opinionated, and powerful women, A Secret History of Witches is the new novel by Louisa Morgan. While I had extremely high hopes for this book (given the title, the blurb, and the beautiful cover), I found myself disappointed. The premise was good, the opening was (dare I say) magical, but the rest of the book read like repeat after repeat after . . . repeat after repeat. Each story of each woman only had slight changes, and curiously enough, the most interesting of all of these women was Iréne – the bitch. I had a very hard time investing myself in these characters who never seemed to really feel any true emotion or actually (outside of a few potions to make men fall in love with them) perform any actual magic! When a title mentions witches, you have to believe that you’re in store for a world full of charms, conjuring, and covens. In fact, the only real coven was in the first chapter, but even then the women didn’t seem to like each other very much. That resulted in me not being able to really like them either.

Each chapter and “book of” melted into the next with no real solid transition other than “okay, we have moved on to the next girl and she is a teenager about to get her first period, and after that she will figure out that she has power and she will be super surprised.” What the heck?! I WANTED MORE. I felt like this book was a waste of time.

I give A Secret History of Witches 3 out of 5 stars, and I do NOT liken it to Alice Hoffman, as so many other websites are trying to.

Spanning generations, A Secret History of Witches follows the magical lives of one family. Starting in the early 19th century and following the line through the end of World War II, this story of a Romani family line is...exactly what you think, it's about witches.

There is a strong mother -daughter bond throughout each section/time period and the themes of hiding their craft is also along each line. We follow this family and see that every relationship is complicated, and dramatic, and magical in it's own way.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I really wanted to love this novel but I didn't. The book is broken down into multiple parts such that each witch from the next generation gets her own story. I love the idea of magic being passed down from mother to daughter but I think that is where the problem of this novel lay: for each generation, the story from the previous generation must be recounted, and the same reactions from the newest witch are described, and it just starts to become repetitive. It's hard to break from that cycle when it is that very cycle that is being described in the novel. I think that out of all of the witches that were described, there was only one that was truly different from the rest. While I get that the same traits and powers will run in the family, the personalities of the different witches were too similar for my taste. And as I mentioned, the concept was interesting in the beginning but the story itself was too cyclic and repetitive to maintain my interest. The author did put a valiant effort in trying to tie in different historical events to change things up between generations, but the scenarios remained the same. I also wish there had been more supernatural elements; I would have loved to read about the different spells and things that they learned and the reasons why they did certain rituals. For me, there was just not enough of a unique story and so, I'm giving this a 2/5 stars.

Witches. What woman has not been called a witch in the course of her life, often for nothing more than standing up for herself or expressing a dissenting opinion? Strong, intelligent, and independent women have always made men uncomfortable for as long as the patriarchal society reigns supreme. In A Secret History of Witches, no one knows this truth more than the Orchiere women.

What is compelling about the Orchiere women is their acceptance of their powers through the generations and the differences one generation can make when it comes to personality. For each teenage girl just learning about the matriarchal history, there is a mother with a different agenda. The familial relationships - strained, close, and everything else in-between - are the strongest sections of the story, as they show that sometimes no matter what you do, your children will follow their own path. The use of the passage of time is also quite interesting. Each generation has a differing opinion of magic and a varying level of acceptance of her powers, but this acceptance does not necessarily diminish as time progresses. Modern does not always mean one scoffs at magic. There could almost be a separate study on the events of the time versus the character's acceptance of her powers; I can see this as a potential book club discussion point.

The remainder of the novel follows a fairly repetitive format with a story that is as familiar as it is comforting. Like many a fairy tale, some of the stories have a happier ending than others. All provide some form of life lesson, and all reiterate the idea that men are not comfortable around independent and strong-willed women. This latter message is disheartening for rather than encouraging women to stand tall and be proud of who they are, the message of the Orchiere women is to hide who they are and always defer to the men in their lives. This is not quite the message I want to pass along these days.

Educational A Secret History of Witches is not, but it is entertaining and harmless, for the most part. I do wish those strong-willed Orchiere women who failed to kow-tow to the men had happier endings. It is such a slight thing, and yet anything that perpetuates the norm these days is questionable. The idea of witches has always been a threat to the patriarchy, and Ms. Morgan fails to capitalize on that threat by showing that a family that hides to survive but loses their independent identity in the process.

Louisa Morgan follows several generations of Orchière (Orchard) women from France to Cornwall to Wales and London. From the early 1800s to WWII, each Orchière mother faces the difficult tasks of telling their headstrong daughter about their secret, magical inheritance of witchcraft. Whether in Catholic France or Anglican England, the Orchière women are never safe from the religious and suspicious, and the tensions between the women from Nanette to Ursule to Irene to Morwen and finally Veronica echo across the generations. Some give up everything for love. Another uses the craft to get the wealth and position she craves but discovers that her power costs her dearly. Another eschews the craft in order to obtain the happiness she desires, and another comes to learn of her gifts many years after her mother's death. The magical inheritance these women share replays generation after generation and has personal, as well as historical, implications.

This book is well written and the multi-generational aspect is appealing. The characters feel a bit flat, however. The reader sees the same basic struggles played out again and again with each mother-daughter pairing, and the results feel very predictable. Not a lot of tension, not a lot of depth into the powers the women held (except for basic potions and scrying), I feel like there is lost potential here. The book is a pleasant read, and I did like the emphasis on mothers and daughters (a relationship that often feels neglected), but nothing that will really transport you into the narrative.

I found this book a little hard to get into. There are parts that I really enjoyed and others not as much.