HUMMINGBIRD MOONRISE

Old curses, witchcraft, and family conflict abound in Dodd’s supernatural novel, one in a series.

In 1940, series protagonist Arista Kelly’s forebear, Barry Kelly, is a dog breeder in California. After a neighbor poisons one of his dogs, Barry enacts revenge by killing the man. In turn, the dead man’s wife puts a curse on the Kelly family, using “dark magick.” In the present, a man named Mateo has been hired to work on Arista Kelly’s home. Something catches Mateo’s eye: a suitcase containing “a cache of papers and trinkets.” The papers include instructions for a vision spell; since Mateo’s young son has sight problems, he takes the case home with him. Upon closer inspection, the vision spell proves to be of little use to Mateo, and his possession of the suitcase starts to cause problems. Meanwhile, Arista’s neighbor, a “strong, well-seasoned witch” named Iris, has gone missing. When Arista and her aunt investigate, they find evidence in Iris’ home of the curse that was put on the Kelly family—Iris, it transpires, is the original hexer’s granddaughter, and she is on her own adventure after having been possessed by Arista’s uncle Fergus. There is a lot going on in the narrative as a colorful assortment of characters go about their business: Mateo’s troubles with the suitcase and Iris’ journey home after finding herself in Spokane are merely the beginning of the “rowdy commotion” to come. In this world of multicolored auras, where characters have to worry about being possessed and are also concerned with, say, buying jewelry for a loved one, the reader never knows how events will develop. Dodd’s descriptions can be a little too on the nose; at one point, “a scowl of hatred brim[s] across” the face of a villain. Still, while some elements are predictable, there is a rich world of magic and conflict to explore before the story reaches its conclusion.

A nuanced, multifaceted yarn with magical machinations and real-world concerns.