The Thirteen by Canadian author Susie Moloney is a paranormal thriller about a group of witches who live in a suburb called Haven Woods, a place that is described as the perfect place to raise a family. Paula was raised there and looks back at that time as a happy time but she seems to have forgotten some of the weird things that happened then. There was a price for these witches to pay when they made a pact with a demon, and offering him human sacrifices, even of their own sons and husbands was expected.

Paula and her daughter return to Haven Woods as Paula’s mother is ill and has been placed in the local hospital. This visit is also an opportunity for Paula to decide what the next step in her life will be, as she just lost her job and her twelve year old daughter Rowan, has just been expelled from school. Little does she know that coming home is possibly the worst thing she could have done. The local witches have plans for her and her daughter.

The Thirteen isn’t a really scary book but it is very creepy. Witches, spells, magic and horror combine in this dark story and show how far some women are willing to go to make life better for themselves and their families. I probably would have enjoyed this book more if I had been able to simply accept what was going on but I found I had a lot of questions that for the most part went unanswered. ( )

this book was so. freaking. boring. i thought i was going to like it, i could not even tell you what it was about after reading 50 pages because the writing is so dry, awful, and boring. it is my biggest fear that someday i will write a book as boring as The Thirteen. ( )

boring. ( )

This was great fun - very cinematic, nicely creepy, solidly plotted through and through without any of those cop-out endings you so often get in horror novels. I liked pretty much all the characters, even Izzy, who's not a likeable person to be sure but is a pretty great coven leader. ( )

Two catch phrases ascribed to this book are “The Witches of Eastwick meets Desperate Housewives” and “A circle of friends will support you through bad times. A circle of witches can drag you through hell.” With that kind of advertising this book seemed right up my alley … reading wise. The reality of it all … not so much!

Haven Woods seems like the perfect, picturesque little town. Perfect houses, perfect lives, almost perfect everything. We meet the town “clique”, thirteen women who seem to have the perfect lives. Everything they have ever wished for. Until one of them goes off the rails and commits suicide, not all of a sudden nothing is so perfect anymore. As these women try to restore order to their lives by bringing their number back to the magical thirteen the reader begins to understand why their lives are so perfect. It seems everything comes at a cost, even if that cost is family.

As I stated earlier this is the kind of book I would normally enjoy but unfortunately I did not. I found the characters to be a little cliché, the situations (particularly near then end of the book) seemed almost cartoon like and the end of the book, which should have been the “big scene”, was just boring.

I have read Ms. Maloney’s The Dry Spell, which I thought was really original and enthralling. I am sorry to say that I cannot repeat those words about The Thirteen.
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