A dreamy California Gothic about a woman who moves to the mysterious town of Bellinas to save her marriage, only to be swept up in a hedonistic cult that isn't what it seems
Tansy and her husband, Guy, are the newest arrivals in Bellinas, a lush oasis tucked into the coast of northern California where a reclusive, creative community is beginning to take shape. Helmed by Guy's cousin Mia, a famous model turned wellness luminary, and her tech mogul husband, the group renounces the outside world in pursuit of purity, fashioning their own rules about what to eat and how to live.
Everything seems perfect in Bellinas: food is abundant, flowers are always in bloom, and nearby wildfires leave the town remarkably unscathed. While Guy is happy in their new life, Tansy becomes more and more suspicious of the community and increasingly desperate to save her already-fragile marriage. And as lonely women have throughout the ages, she wants to believe in what may only be a beautiful lie.
The Witches of Bellinas unfolds as a confession from Tansy, filled with anguish over the life and sense of self she's surrendered in her desperation to belong. In J. Nicole Jones's clever reimagining of cult power and groupthink, the question isn't Why join, but rather, What happens when you understand the danger but can't conceive of a way out?
"The Witches of Bellinas is like the eerie technicolor love child of Midsommar and Rebecca. I loved being inside Tansy's mind as she learns to decode the sun-soaked, menacing world of Bellinas—and as she learns to decode herself, too. Myth and magic, gender and power, desire and death all swirl together in this novel to make a heady brew."—Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson