Showing The Witch Narratives: Reincarnation (Land of Enchantment #1) by Belinda Vasquez Garcia

A photograph of three real Native American witches inspired the author. The haunted eyes of the young witch, a girl squeezed between her mother and aunt, brought forth the idea about a girl forced to follow in her family's magical footsteps and join the family business, so to speak.

In Madrid, New Mexico, the villagers hide crosses under their doormats, and paint the openings of their shacks the blue color of the Virgin Mary’s robe, in order to keep out the local witches. Salia’s family turns into fireballs and travel by the spark of a flame to race across the sky like shooting stars. Witch lights the villagers call these illuminations.

There is a portrait in the house at the bottom of Witch Hill. Eleven-year-old Salia looks out of the picture with haunted eyes. She is pale because her mother pinches her arm, but Salia's grandmother dominates the picture. She is 110 years old but appears to be a teenager, proudly holding out in her hand an ordinary-looking rock, a rare shape-shifting stone, allowing her to bathe like in the fountain of youth, to be immortal while others around her age.

Salia is a half-breed, living on the fringes of society, with her cruel mother and selfish grandmother who tutor her as a witch. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but humanity will never break me," -- so claims the witch, Salia, but she was born with a soft, all too human heart that even being an outcast won't harden. Salia has coyotes as her only friends until her family make her befriend Marcelina, a Catholic girl they have their eye on.

While Salia longs to be ordinary, her friend Marcelina is torn between her Catholic faith and witchcraft allure.

When Salia, now a beautiful young woman, catches the eye of the arrogant Samuel Stuwart, who owns all of Madrid, the villagers gossip that she has bewitched him.

A fanatical, Catholic secret society holds the village in fear and swears to root out witchcraft like in the days of the Spanish Inquisition.

The Land of Enchantment Series is brewed with the little-known world of Southwestern magic. It is a magical tale of friendship, love, betrayal, and toxic family ties.