Witch Child Books in Order

The Witch Child books begin with one of Celia Rees's strongest hooks: a hidden diary from 1659, written by a girl who says plainly that she is a witch. That girl is Mary Newbury. After seeing her grandmother executed in England, Mary escapes across the Atlantic and ends up among Puritans in the New World, where suspicion is everywhere and difference can get you killed.

What makes the first book work so well is the closeness of Mary's voice. She is frightened, watchful, stubborn, and trying to survive in a place where every word and gesture can be judged. Rees uses the diary form to keep readers right inside that fear. The setting matters a lot too. The crossing to America, the hard settlement life, and the severe religious atmosphere are not just background. They shape every choice Mary makes.

It is a story about persecution, but it is also a story about identity.

Mary has knowledge of healing and nature that other people quickly read as threat. That tension carries the whole series. Rees is interested in what happens when a community decides that control matters more than kindness, and when a young woman has to hide the truest parts of herself just to stay alive. The supernatural thread is there, but the emotional danger often feels even sharper than the magic.

Sorceress opens the story out in a clever way. Instead of simply repeating the first book, it links Mary's later life to Agnes Herne, a girl living centuries later who shares more than blood with her. Through that connection, the series moves beyond the original diary and into a wider story about inheritance, memory, healing, and the cost of colonisation. The time jump gives the sequel a different feel, but it stays rooted in the same questions about belonging and survival.

These books mix historical fiction with fantasy in a very readable way. The magic is never just decorative. It sits alongside fear, faith, land, and family history. Readers who like immersive period detail usually have plenty to hold onto, but so do readers who mainly want a tense, personal story led by a girl under pressure.

At heart, this is a two-book series about a young woman trying to stay whole in a world determined to label and punish her. It has the tension of a survival story, the atmosphere of a witch tale, and the emotional pull of a family history that refuses to stay buried. If you want one of Rees's clearest examples of history and the uncanny working together, this is the place to start.