J. Nicole Jones's The Witches of Bellinas sets a newlywed couple in a vibrant small community--a lovely wealthy commune, or a cult?--and watches the fallout, in an atmospheric, suspenseful experiment involving witchcraft, love, and dividing loyalties.
Tansy and Guy have been married mere months, although they've been together for a decade, when they move from New York City to the hamlet of Bellinas on the coast of northern California. Wealthy, health-oriented, idyllic, and highly exclusive, Bellinas is led by the charismatic Manny, or Father M to his followers, a business mogul turned self-styled guru, and his wife, Mia, a former model. Guy falls easily and head-over-heels into the lush, indulgent lifestyle: surfing, diving for abalone, carousing. Tansy, expected like all the wives to serve her husband's whims, finds Bellinas a bit suspicious. But the town's high shine, like its perfect weather, is hard to resist. She wants things to work out with Guy, so she goes along.
The Witches of Bellinas is narrated by Tansy in hindsight, from an apparent confinement in the town schoolhouse, after something has gone awry. Jones (Low Country) gives Tansy a strong sense of the wrongs done women at the hands of men, from both her experience and her scholarly work as a former academic. She writes, it seems, for her life.
At the intersection of the supernatural and simple human ugliness, The Witches of Bellinas gives its readers chills and thrills along with a profound sense of wrongs done, but no heroes or villains. This is a novel for anyone who's wondered if the picturesque might be too good to be true. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia