20 Must-Read Witchy Mysteries & Thrillers

Brynn Warren is the youngest in a long line of witches in her family, and after centuries of quietly living in their New England town, it all might come crashing down. Constance Graves, a local known for being not very nice, dies in the Warren family bed and breakfast, and Brynn’s aunt Nora is soon pinned as the prime suspect. Brynn now knows she needs to use her magic — speaking to the dead — to help solve the mystery of Constance’s death before it’s too late for her aunt Nora.

Josie is a librarian in a small Pacific Northwest town, staying hidden from a past life. But what should have been a quiet life under the radar becomes anything but when she stumbles across a body in the woods. Not only that, but she learns she comes from a long line of powerful witches, and her powers activate suddenly and without warning. She has no idea how to manage this new part of her life, but she needs to figure it out fast to learn who killed this person in the woods and to keep her true identity under wraps.

Mila and Riley are inseparable BFFs, and with nothing much else to do in their small town, they like to practice amateur witchcraft — just for fun. But when the unthinkable happens and Riley and two other girls at school die under suspicious circumstances, Mila is heartbroken. And she knows she needs to get to the bottom of what happened to her best friend. So, using her limited knowledge of witchcraft, she brings Riley and the other girls back to life. They’ve only got seven days before the spell wears off, and they have no memory of what happened to them, so the four girls work together to untangle the mystery before anyone else is hurt.

The Haywood family of Yarrow, Kentucky, is known for their shadow garden. They grow food with magical flavors, that can cure illness and heartache, and can even make the local bourbon taste exceptional. But one summer, many years ago, tragedy struck. Residents of the town forgot the entire summer: the summer where one person died, and one person disappeared. And no one can remember a thing. Now, some secrets are beginning to reveal themselves, and suddenly it seems like they may finally be able to solve the mystery after all, and it’s all going to come down to Irene Haywood and a mysterious clue in her tea leaves.

Arrah has no magical powers of her own, and she fears disappointing her family because of it. She’s the heir to powerful witchdoctors, yet she can’t summon her own bone magic. But when children in the kingdom begin to disappear — including her best friend — she knows she has to stop whatever is going on, magic or not. She’s heard of borrowing power in exchange for years taken from your life and knows this may be her only shot at finding her friend. As Arrah gets deeper into the magical world and the strange disappearances, she will also have to unravel her own family secrets to learn more about her own powers.

More of a layered fiction with a secondary mystery inside, this tale follows Zoe, a young journalist reporting on the murder of Paloma. When Zoe travels to meet Paloma’s cousin, Feliciana, she discovers Paloma has taught her cousin her own healing practices, including passing on knowledge about the Language and the Book that carry all their secrets. The story is told in alternating chapters, and each story unravels as the women investigate the other’s life.

Elena Boureanu has finally broken the spell that confined her to the marshland, and she is able to return home to the vineyard she was set to inherit. But without her magic and presence tending to the vines, it has fallen into the hands of a stranger. Jean-Paul is now in charge of the vineyard, and he doesn’t believe the locals’ stories about witches controlling the vines. Elena is determined to not only help the vines, but also uncover the truth behind who cast the spell that stole years of her life away and why.

Yadriel, reeling in the wake of his traditional Latine family struggling to accept his gender, is on a quest to prove that he is a real and true brujo. But when he performs a ritual to set the ghost of his murdered cousin free, he accidentally summons another boy instead: Julian Diaz, a boy from Yadriel’s school. Julian is determined to know once and for all what happened to him, and he needs Yadriel to help him in order to move on, so the two boys set off to learn the truth about Julian’s death.

Witches are hunted, and Alyce knows this better than anyone. Her mother has just been burned at the stake for being a witch, and now Alyce herself is on the run from a witch hunter. She barely knows anything about the witching world, but she teams up with a boy on a hunt of his own, and together, the two try to evade capture and learn more about their families’ pasts. But the farther they get, the more they realize this chase is bigger than the two of them: it’s a battle between good and evil and the living and the dead, and they’re both drawn into a much bigger web of secrets and dark magic than they ever thought possible.

Natasha will stop at nothing to find out what happened to her sister after her car was found abandoned at the edge of a nature preserve. She’s furious no one has made any progress, and now, the case is going cold. So she turns to Della for help, who has a dark secret: Della’s family channels magic from the nature preserve, casting spells for locals who need help. So when Natasha turns up asking for help, it should be simple. But Della knows what really happened, and she can’t let Natasha discover who was behind her sister’s disappearance. The two team up — each with something to hide — to try to track down Natasha’s sister and both come out alive on the other end.

Elena is an author and influencer ready to sell her family’s manor house. As she returns to the home, however, she feels a connection with Ilsbeth, a woman from centuries earlier who was accused of witchcraft and drowned in a well in the area. Elena feels compelled to write about Ilsbeth, but her childhood friend, Cathy, has been researching and writing about Ilsbeth for years. As the two former friends discover they’re researching the same subject, they begin getting more competitive about uncovering Ilsbeth’s true story and will stop at nothing for ownership of the story.