Here’s a concise plot recap of The Witch by Freida McFadden:
Julia Barlow loses her job and apartment, so she returns to her family’s old estate, Pemberton, in rural Massachusetts to check on her aging grandmother. What she expects to be a quiet escape instead becomes a place haunted by strange occurrences: a grandfather clock that stops each night at exactly 3:41 a.m., flickering lights, and a voice crying for help outside her bedroom door.
Julia starts digging into the estate’s history and learns of Caroline Eldridge, a woman from 1692 accused of witchcraft and executed. Caroline’s story unfolds in parallel to Julia’s, and Julia discovers human bones buried on Pemberton’s grounds, suggesting that long-buried family secrets and possibly supernatural elements may still linger.
The novel alternates between Julia’s present-day narrative and Caroline’s voice in 1692. Caroline is married to a merchant, but her life becomes complicated by infertility, community suspicion of witchcraft, and the consequences of defending a friend accused of wrongdoing. As Julia investigates, she uncovers layers of deception, betrayal, and identity hidden in the family history that connect convincingly to present-day mysteries.
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