The Witches of New York is the first installment of the Witches of New York duology, a fantasy- and historical-fiction-based series written by American Canadian author Ami McKay. The novel details the encounter between two born witches, Eleanor St. Clair and Adelaide Thom (Moth from McKay’s other novel, The Virgin Cure), and a newly made witch, Beatrice Dunn. Together, they navigate the trappings, dangers, and excitement of the Gilded Age in New York while keeping themselves and their magic hidden from sinister foes.

Published on October 25, 2016, the novel became a #1 Canadian Bestseller, won the 2017 Atlantic Independent Bookseller’s Choice Award, and was nominated for both the Sunburst Award for Fiction and the Thomas Raddall Prize. Known for her two previously published and highly decorated novels, McKay delves into the historical struggles faced by women, the strength they cultivated for rebellion, and the courage they embraced to face the social constraints in The Witches of New York.

This study guide refers to the eBook edition of The Witches of New York published by Knopf Canada in 2016. Other editions of the source text may include additional content not represented in the guide.

Content Warning: This novel features references to the dehumanizing treatment of women and children as well as depictions of suicide. Additionally, the source material uses offensive terms to refer to Romani people and people with mental health conditions throughout, which is replicated in this guide only in direct quotes.

Plot Summary

As the United States recovers from the Civil War, New York is booming with innovation, mayhem, and mysteries. Among them is a quaint, women-exclusive tea shop named Tea and Sympathy, run by Eleanor St. Clair and Adelaide Moth. The former is a gifted herbalist, the latter is a perceptive fortune-teller, and both are witches.

Unbeknownst to Eleanor, Adelaide has placed an ad for a shop girl to help them with their affairs, and in the small town of Stony Point, young Beatrice Dunn wants to claim the position. Though she doesn’t believe in witches, Beatrice needs all the help she can get and makes a Witch’s Ladder charm, hoping it’ll help her escape her predictable life. On the day she is meant to travel to New York for the interview, however, passenger trains cease to operate to make way for Cleopatra’s Needle, an obelisk set to be installed in New York thanks to Gideon Palsham. Palsham, however, is fooling the masses; though people believe he is a wealthy architect, he is the great demon Malphas in disguise. Beatrice manages to hitch a ride on a freight train instead. Along the way, she has the opportunity to touch the obelisk—only to promptly lose consciousness.

Adelaide, meanwhile, is on the hunt for a medium that can help her contact her mother’s spirit. She follows a rumor to Mr. Beadle, a man who claims to have been tricked into hiring a witch as a maid. However, the woman in question, Lena McLeod, has disappeared, last seen with Reverend Townsend. Trapped in the parsonage’s cellar, Lena undergoes brutal abuse from Townsend and ultimately commits suicide to escape him.

By the time Beatrice arrives at the shop, she is late for her interview, and both Eleanor and Adelaide are gone. Perdu, Eleanor’s raven familiar, lets Beatrice inside. There, Beatrice has a frightful encounter with her first ghost, Adelaide’s mother. Eleanor finds her fainted on the ground, nurses her back to health, and in the end, gives her the shopgirl position. As Beatrice settles in, Adelaide encounters an alienist (an outdated term for a psychiatrist), Dr. Quinn Brody, through a mutual friend. Sparks fly between them, and Brody, who came to New York to settle his father’s affairs, takes an interest in Adelaide and her friends. After Beatrice’s second encounter with a ghost, Billy Dashley, Eleanor confirms she is a witch.

Later, Brody invites Beatrice to conduct an experiment on her powers, one that measures her communication abilities with spirits through his father’s apparatus, the spiritoscope. When the experiment proves a resounding success, Adelaide convinces Beatrice to put on a show for the Freemasons’ parade. As they prepare for the show and Eleanor teaches Beatrice about being a witch, Reverend Townsend looms and finds new victims whom he believes are witches. He kidnaps a young fortune-telling girl and later kills a sex worker, Jenny Greene, for tempting him into sin. When he sees Beatrice with Adelaide in the park, he decides he must “save” Beatrice from Adelaide’s bewitching.

Eleanor, meanwhile, has been contacted by an old lover, Lucy Newland, who cannot decide whether to move forward with a pregnancy while she does not love her husband. On the eve of Beatrice’s show, Lucy runs away. Her husband, Cecil Newland, lures Eleanor to his home to threaten revenge and later buys the tea shop’s building to evict her, Adelaide, and Beatrice. While tensions run high during the parade, Beatrice has second thoughts about performing with her powers. As she wanders away from the venue for some fresh air, Townsend kidnaps her.

Eleanor, Adelaide, and Brody look for her everywhere but cannot find any clue about where she might be. Days go by, and Beatrice is kept in the parsonage’s cellar. Lena’s ghost remains and advises her on how to survive Townsend’s daily violence. When he believes Beatrice deceived him about her repentance, Townsend moves to kill her. In their struggle, she sets the parsonage ablaze, which kills him. Simultaneously, Eleanor and Adelaide perform a spell that will bring them a guide to find Beatrice. The fortune-telling girl appears on their doorstep, and she leads them to the parsonage, where Beatrice has already escaped.

Back in the safety of the tea shop, Beatrice heals and recovers. Brody offers his home and his father’s old shop for the women to use when they vacate their old home. The three witches leave Tea and Sympathy behind to start fresh in their new tea shop, The Hermitage. Unbeknownst to them all, Palsham watches on, holding back his cronies to pluck Beatrice, Eleanor, and Adelaide for his nefarious purposes at the right time.