The King of Bones and Ashes

The Dreaming Road is the fabled place where unhappy witches go to escape unhappy lives and live their lives in fantasy. Alice’s mother abandoned her daughter to take this path – leaving her to be locked away in a remote psychiatric ward hidden from the world by magic. But now Alice is going home to New Orleans, where magic is fading and the old witching families are losing their power. As Alice tries to figure out why magic is waning, Babau Jean, the boogeyman that has haunted her since childhood, threatens to destroy her sanity. Is Alice the key to restoring magic? Does the mythical Dreaming Road hold the answers, not only to her mother’s disappearance but to what is draining the power from the witches?

J.D. Horn’s latest, The King of Bones and Ashes opens his new series, The Witches of New Orleans. Separate from his Witching in Savannah series, Horn introduces new families of once-powerful witches that are losing their power and must somehow put aside their feuds to fight an unknown threat. A quick read, the novel’s promise of a mysterious, supernatural spine-chiller is a bit slow, with little action or horror. If you are looking for a tales that weave history, magic, and witches, pick up Anne Rice, Paula Brackston, or Deborah Harkness.