Following her 30 fiction books, which include the four-book Practical Magic series, Alice Hoffman's atmospheric novel The Witches of Cambridge merges magic and history. Hoffman links the narrative of the first witch of Cambridge, Mass., who arrived in Boston from London in 1692, with the stories of two women enrolling in Radcliffe College in 1950.
Raised on an isolated orchard in Maine, Ava has always known she was different, and a Radcliffe scholarship offers a longed-for escape. Lauren, a privileged Cambridge native, seems an unlikely friend. But when both are invited into the Lilith Society, established in 1693 "as a safe haven in the marshes of Cambridge" where women study "the Unnamed Art," they discover their shared legacy. At Harvard, the men's college at which Radcliffe formed in 1879, Jamie Mather, the 10th-great-grandson of "the most heartless man who had influenced the Salem witch trials," is smitten with the beautiful redhaired Ava. But because of the terrifying truth of his heritage, he must shun her.
Although the characters struggle with typical coming-of-age issues, their witchy talents guide their actions. Magic permeates the story--blood runs black, 12 crows follow Ava, the women learn charms and spells. Meanwhile, Hoffman includes details of the Joseph McCarthy-era political witch hunts that "persecuted left-wing intellectuals and artists," which parallel the 17th-century trials in Salem that targeted Ava's and Lauren's ancestors, lending immediacy to this evocative novel, the enticing first in a planned series. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House, Albany, N.Y.