Bad Witch Burning

By: Jessica Lewis

Narrated by: Kamali Minter

For fans of Lovecraft Country and Candyman comes a witchy story full of Black girl magic as one girl's dark ability to summon the dead offers her a chance at a new life, while revealing to her an even darker future.

Katrell can talk to the dead. And she wishes it made more money. She’s been able to support her unemployed mother - and Mom’s deadbeat-boyfriend-of-the-week - so far, but it isn’t enough. Money’s still tight, and to complicate things, Katrell has started to draw attention. Not from this world - from beyond. And it comes with a warning: Stop, or there will be consequences.

Katrell is willing to call the ghosts on their bluff; she has no choice. What do ghosts know of having sleep for dinner? But when her next summoning accidentally raises someone from the dead, Katrell realizes that a live body is worth a lot more than a dead apparition. And, warning or not, she has no intention of letting this lucrative new business go.

Only magic isn’t free, and dark forces are coming to collect. Now Katrell faces a choice: resign herself to poverty, or confront the darkness before it’s too late.

©2021 Jessica Lewis (P)2021 Listening Library

Critic reviews

A Reese’s Book Club Recommended Spooky Read!

"The world is always telling Black girls that if we play with fire, we’re bound to get burned. Katrell came out here and said 'We ARE the fire’." (Brittney Morris, best-selling author of Slay and The Cost of Knowing)

"Practical Magic meets Black Girl Magic in this powerful addition to the YA canon. I couldn't put it down." (Number one New York Times best-selling author Victoria Schwab)

"Heart-rending and chilling, Bad Witch Burning is a dark and daring portrait of a Black girl taking back her power. Truly, Black Girl Magic at its finest." (J.Elle, NYT best-selling author of Wings of Ebony)

3.5 stars

I really didn’t expect to like this book as much as I did. I cringed when I listened to the somewhat mediocre writing in 1st person (I still wish this would have been written in 3rd person, as not many writers—and certainly not this one—can pull off a good 1st person narrative for an entire novel) I also found the protagonist more than a little annoying. But in all fairness she did live up to teenage brashness and stupidity. I wasn’t the most ‘think before you act’ person at 16 either.
That aside this book was very original and actually kept me entertained throughout all of it. The idea behind the revenants was so refreshingly interesting it surprised me. And I really thought the abuse and hardship of the main character were well written and gave the book an extra emotional layer. In the beginning I was fuming at the mother. It was brilliant how subtly her abusive personality was built up.

A page-turning dark urban fantasy!

What an excellent book. Jessica Lewis did an amazing job portraying the real life struggles of a 16yo girl fighting for survival in the modern world with a neglectful mother and her abusive boyfriend. Lots of gritty truths about living in a low-income home and making it on your own…Not for the faint of heart.
Trell uses her magic to aid her desperate situation and while she gains freedom and security in one hand, she’s destroying herself in the other.
A very fast-paced, dark novel. This is an intense story (in the best way) and has a great ending.

Great debut from an author to watch

The story is solid and entertaining, and Lewis permeates the whole thing with constant dread, but where she excels as an author is characters. Good authors write memorable characters. Great ones write flesh and blood people. Katrell and her allies are deeply drawn and wholly believable, and in Katrell's mom and her mom's boyfriend, Lewis has created two of the most detestable, chilling villains I've read in recent memory.