Housewitch: A Novel

Former foster child, now a stay-at-home mom of three, Allison Darling desperately wants to fit in with the latte drinking and hundred-dollar-yoga-pants wearing moms that run Monrovia, her charming seaside town. Constantly feeling like an outsider, Allison dreams of more for her children.

When Allison's estranged mother passes away, her previously dormant special talents emerge. Soon she is reunited with the family that abandoned her and learns of their heartbreaking legacy.

At the same time, the Glamour Girls, a soap-selling company run by the most popular women in Monrovia, recruits Allison to join them. They have a monopoly on everything in town, from bake sales to businesses deals. But once you're a Glamour Girl, there's no going back.

Suddenly caught between the rag-tag, hippie relatives she once so desperately wanted and the rich, charismatic Glamour GirlsۥAllison is unsure where she fits in. Could she come to trust the strange outcast family that abandoned her, or really hang with the most powerful, glamorous women in town?

For Allison, it's like high school all over again, except this time, the mean girls have more than killer manicures and the nobodies aren't sulking in the band hall. They're adults. They've got husbands, children, and livelihoods on the line. And they also happen to be witches.

Allison's decision to lend her powerful magical talents to either group will change Monroviaۥand Allisonۥforever.

"Katie Schickel's debut entertains while delightfully skewering our culture's obsession with domestic perfection. In the spirit of John Updike's Witches of Eastwick and Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic, Schickel casts a spell all her own. Housewitch takes us deep inside the dark arts of 21st century motherhood and sparkles with unexpected magic." ۥAmber Dermont, New York Times bestselling author of The Starboard Sea