The Thirteen

The Thirteen by Susie Moloney
Review copy provided by William Morrow
Description from Goodreads
"Desperate Housewives" meets "The Witches of Eastwick" in this novel about a woman who returns with her teenage daughter to her childhood home, not knowing that she's stepped back into a community run by a group of witches.

My take:

I found The Thirteen to be an entertaining, if disturbing book. The story did pull me in quickly and even though I had a few issues with some of the threads of the plot, I did like the book.  It was sufficiently creepy and made me love my dog even more.

I liked the main character Paula, but I did think she fell back into behaviors that she had left behind when she moved away from town.  I really liked her daughter Rowan and because of her spunk I had to give Paula a break – Rowan didn’t get that smart and spunky without a role model.


The Thirteen are a coven of witches – or witch wannabes – they are not traditional witches but have basically sold their souls to a demon or an evil ancient god of some kind. Regardless of what it is, it is E-V-I-L. I found the irony of how the lives of these women turned out to be quite delicious.  Some of the things that happen are extremely gross and very disturbing.  So many times while reading this book I thought of that thing our grandmothers would always tell us: Be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.  This is so very true for the thirteen women in the coven.  There are two of the older women who did manage to see things for what they were and took some actions – but not enough and not in time.  But I did kind of admire them for their attempts to thwart the actions of Izzy, the big bad leader of their group.


Some things in the book might disturb some people and will definitely gross some people out. There is also some humor throughout the story.  I was grossed out and disturbed, but I could NOT stop reading. This story had me in its grasp.  I’d recommend this book for mature readers who like horror stories.