Half Spent Was the Night A Witches' Yuletide

Beloved author Ami McKay is back, bringing us a magical follow-up in the tradition of Victorian winter tales to her mesmerizing bestseller, The Witches of New York.

During the nights between Christmas and New Year's, the witches of New York--Adelaide Thom, Eleanor St. Clair and the youngest, Beatrice Dunn--gather before the fire to tell ghost stories and perform traditional Yuletide divinations. (Did you know that roasting chestnuts was once used to foretell one's fate?)
     As the witches roast chestnuts and melt lead to see their fate, a series of odd messengers land on their doorstep bearing invitations for a New Year's Eve masquerade hosted by a woman they've never met. Gossip, dreams and portents follow, leading the witches to question the woman's motives. Is she as benevolent as she seems or is she laying a trap? And so, as Gilded-Age New York prepares to ring in the new year, the witches don their finery and head for the ball, on the hunt for answers that might well be the end of them.

AMI McKAY's debut novel, The Birth House, was a #1 bestseller in Canada, winner of three CBA Libris Awards, nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, a finalist for Canada Reads and a book-club favourite around the world. Her second novel, The Virgin Cure, a Best Book pick across numerous lists, was inspired by the life of her great-great grandmother, Dr. Sarah Fonda Mackintosh, a female physician in nineteenth-century New York. And with her third, The Witches of New York, also a national bestseller, she was recognized by the Globe and Mail as "one of the country's most beloved storytellers." Born and raised in Indiana, McKay now lives in Nova Scotia.