Allie Levy owns and runs Still North Books & Bar in Hanover.

When the leaves start to drop, I find myself craving stories about colonial New England—and the early colonists’ preoccupation with witchcraft specifically. Perhaps the retreating daylight reminds me of just how dark the long nights must have felt to the Puritans, or maybe there’s something exposing about the lack of leaves that makes me want to stare straight at the violent and troublesome beginnings of this country. Thankfully, there is never a shortage of witchy tales hitting the shelves. Among the most recent entries into the genre, Chris Bohjalian’s latest novel, The Hour of the Witch, stands out. Readers may know Bohjalian, who lives in Vermont, for his thrillers, including The Flight Attendant (recently adapted into an HBO miniseries) and The Red Lotus.

Part exceptionally well-researched historical fiction, part horror, The Hour of the Witch tells the story of a Puritan woman who petitions to divorce her physically abusive husband. Yet the divorce proceedings are overshadowed by suspicions that Mary is practicing witchcraft, prompted in part by the appearance of two forks (“the devil’s tines”) buried in her garden. Set in 1662 Boston (that’s roughly 30 years and 20 miles away from the epicenter of the Salem Witch Trials), the novel stews in the intense anxiety that characterizes the Puritan mindset. In the acknowledgments at the end of the book, Bohjalian writes that he feels drawn to Puritan New England “because—always a spectacularly anxious soul—I identified with the Puritans’ often desperate self-examination.” Perhaps this is what keeps me, too, returning to this period in history year after year.

You'll find The Hour of the Witch at your local library or independent bookseller.

Up next week: Jared Jenisch of the Howe Library

Previous Enthusiasms:

• Carin Pratt on Ash Davidson's Damnation Spring
• Peter Orner on Shirley Hazzard's The Evening of the Holiday
• Rena Mosteirin on Sybille Bedford's A Legacy