Sometimes we inherit our mother’s laughter or our father’s long toes. Other times one of our ancestors angered the wrong witch and ended up on the wrong side of a generational curse. Hey, it happens. It’s surprising the amount of times I’ve heard stories about an old family curse that’s trickled down the bloodline. Any bad occurrence is to be blamed on that one bruja who used to be a neighbor or a cast away salesperson. Sometimes our curses are self-inflicted or a result of generational trauma. Either way, for me, the idea of hereditary curses has always been one of the most interesting tropes in media.
But when stories carry through the themes of family curses with a magical twist, I’m one hundred percent invested. I’m looking at you, Practical Magic and Chocolat. Here are five books that feature inherited curses.
Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
Speaking of Practical Magic, this one’s an excellent comp with the same cozy, witchy vibes and themes of sisterhood, grief, and coming into your power—not to mention a sweet, second-chance romance at its heart. The lineage of Flores women are burdened with a touch of magic because long ago, an ancestor offended the old gods, and now they can’t breathe a word to anyone. The story follows Sage Flores, blessed or cursed with the ability to communicate with plants on a spiritual level. Despite Sage’s nurturing disposition, she’s felt herself abandoned repeatedly. After a recent breakup and losing her job, Sage is forced to move in with her aunt who has superpowered intuition and an estranged sister who can summon lightning. On top of that, the sister who died eight years ago makes an appearance with a cup of coffee each time Sage cries, further complicating Sage’s feelings of grief. On the romantic front, Sage falls back into a role at the Cranberry Rose Company in forced proximity with her old crush, Tennessee Reyes, after he broke her heart in high school. Between familial tensions at home and the rekindling feelings Sage thought she’d long repressed, plant magic isn’t the only thing taking root—Sage’s emotions are getting too big to bury.
Don’t Date Rosa Santos by Nina Moreno
The women of Rosa Santos’ family are cursed by the sea, doomed to lose their lovers to its watery depths. Which is why the worst person Rosa could fall in love with is Alex Aquino—a mysterious, tattooed sailor. This is one of my all-time favorite stories because of its delicate and loving exploration of grief and diasporic silences. The generational curse the Santos women experience is more than something mystical. Rosa’s grandmother lost her husband to the sea while fleeing Cuba and now refuses to even mention the island she had to leave behind. Rosa’s mother storms in and out of her life, refusing to stay for long in the small town of Port Coral where her husband was also lost at sea. Each character is grappling with loss and pain, inheriting the grief through each generation. As much as this story grapples with the familial ties of all three women, it also develops a swoon-worthy romance between Rosa and Alex of epic proportions with side characters and an entire fictionalized town you can’t help but fall in love with.
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
In keeping with the theme of cozy, heartfelt stories, here we have a sweet, witchy tale with a sunshine/grumpy pairing and an adorable found family. The generational curse runs deep in this one, striking any witches’ bloodline, making it so that any witch who has a child is destined to die soon after. In the case of Mika Moon, her mother’s pre-destined death resulted in a lonely life for Mika with a revolving door of nannies, separated from her culture, her home, and other witches. Mika tries filling in the gap by starting her own online channel where she posts videos pretending to be a witch, thinking no one would believe it anyway. Except someone does. Mika is then offered an incredible opportunity to travel to the mysterious Nowhere House where she’ll oversee three young witches, also orphaned by their mothers, and teach them how to control their powers. Once there, Mika is met with a large cast of quirky characters, including the mistrusting and brooding librarian, Jamie, who sees Mika as a threat. Until he doesn’t, and the tension slowly transforms into something more.
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova
In this epic fantasy taking place in both Ecuador and the US, the generational curse is bestowed by Orquídea Divina, the family matriarch, after her death through the form of magical gifts. But when the family members start getting picked off one by one by a mysterious figure, are they really gifts or is it a curse? This magical, multi-generational fantasy is expertly woven as it takes you forward and backward in time and across continents, discovering the secrets Orquídea Divina left buried in Ecuador and carefully unraveling the mystery of her life. There’s a ticking clock the family must abide by when the consequences are deadly, but each member has their own unresolved issues to overcome before they can truly understand Orquídea.
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson
Here the curse takes on a more sinister nature. This book was so compelling and dark, I devoured it within a few days. Immanuelle Moore didn’t exactly inherit a curse, she was bestowed it by her own mother. After her mother’s death, Immanuelle is raised in the small, cultish town of Bethel, led by the Prophet and his laws which leave women at the mercy of men, and where purity and piety are unbreakable tenets. There’s a friendship and burgeoning romance forming between Immanuelle and the Prophet’s son, but that takes a back seat as Immanuelle stumbles into the forbidden forest ruled by witches. There, she finds the monsters she’d been warned about but she also uncovers a journal with all her mother’s secrets. These series of events trigger the curse placed on Immanuelle which unleashes a thread of plagues onto Bethel. As more secrets come to light, Immanuelle must decide if Bethel is even worth saving.
Fueled by the magic of espresso, Miami-born Vanessa Montalban channels her wanderlust for far-off worlds into writing speculative fiction for teens. She’s a first-gen graduate from the University of Central Florida where she received her bachelor’s in creative writing with summa cum laude honors. A Tall Dark Trouble, a YA fantasy featuring a matrilineal curse on Cuban American witches in Miami, is her debut novel.
