You might remember Joanna Margaret from her 2022 debut novel, The Bequest. This dark academia mystery follows an American woman who crosses the Atlantic to begin her PhD in Scotland, but ends up scouring Europe for clues to a 400-year-old mystery she must solve to save a friend. This March, Margaret brings her unique brand of suspense with a historical slant back across the pond in The Daughters—a new novel with similarities previous readers will appreciate, but offering fresh twists and turns in a new stateside setting.
Genevieve Tompkins’ life has recently been turned upside down. Following two great losses—the death of both her father and her ex-fiancé—she decides to leave her PhD program in New York City to work as an archivist upstate in historic Wilton Springs. It sounds like a solid plan: She will use her background in history to make some much-needed money, while taking time to reflect on what she truly wants to do going forward.
Genevieve quickly begins building this new life, befriending a co-worker at the library and a so-called local witch who owns the town spa. She even meets a handsome doctor who gives her hope that maybe, just maybe, there’s a man out there who will treat her well. Not everything is as magical as it seems in Wilton Springs, though.
What begins as the intriguing, if tedious, work of sorting boxes in the dusty library basement—hours upon hours spent organising and cataloguing centuries of the Wilton family’s documents—quickly turns much darker. As her research reveals the founding family’s long history of deceit, including connections to an 18th-century witch trial, Genevieve feels compelled to dig deeper into the past. At the same time, a series of strange disappearances all around her raises red flags she can’t ignore, sparking a relentless search for the truth.
Revealing too much more will spoil the surprises at the heart of this thriller, so let it suffice to say this: Despite being warned against investigating both past and present mysteries, Genevieve finds herself drawn deeper into the myriad secrets of Wilton Springs, culminating in a twisted ending that readers absolutely will not see coming.
Simply put, The Daughters is pure atmosphere and that is what keeps the pages turning. Margaret nails the dark, unsettled feel of a small, northeastern U.S. town with centuries-old ties to witchcraft. It is incredibly easy to get pulled into this world as the story unfolds, short chapters driving the plot ever forward. The reader feels like an archivist themself, digging up bits of history—and clues to the story—piece by piece while sorting through a musty old box of papers alongside Genevieve in the library basement.
Piecing these clues together, however, becomes a bit more difficult as the plot drifts to an unexpected conclusion that feels a bit disjointed from the novel’s premise. Yet the characters keep the reader hooked in, questioning each of their motives and what role they might play in the unravelling mystery.
The novel is also held together by themes that have shaped the United States for centuries. It examines social hierarchies, the position of women within them, and the privilege of wealth. It warns of what those in power can get away with when unchecked. It explores the weight of both belonging and being ostracised as “other.” And, in the end, it is a story of greed and manipulation, in both the past and the present.
All in all, The Daughters is an entertaining, moody read well-suited for a rainy day. So, get ready to curl up in your oversized reading chair with a warm blanket, a good snack, and your favourite beverage. You won’t be leaving until you turn the very last page.
The Daughters is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of March 17th 2026.
Will you be picking up The Daughters? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis
A grieving archivist uncovers a strange connection between recent disappearances and a small New York town’s history of witch trials in this new thriller from the author of The Bequest.
Reeling from the dual deaths of her estranged father and ex-fiancé, Genevieve Tompkins has dropped out of her PhD program in New York City and is looking for a chance to start over in Wilton Springs, a faded Victorian spa town in upstate New York. Utilizing her background as an archivist, she is hired to catalogue the papers of the prominent Wilton family, who trace their lineage back to the founders of the town. But as she digs into their records, Genevieve discovers that the family’s pharmaceutical business and their personal lives have been fraught with a history of tragedy. She also uncovers a series of disturbing disappearances and suspicious deaths among the women of the town.
Three centuries earlier, Wilton Springs was the site of a brutal witch trial–a fact which someone has gone to extreme lengths to erase from historical record. As Genevieve explores the connections between the modern disappearances and the town’s ugly past, she becomes entangled in a web of conspiracy, where the line between superstition and reality begins to blur, and she fears she may become the next woman to go missing from Wilton Springs. . .
Blending elements of Gothic fiction and folk horror, The Daughters is a literary thriller that will keep readers guessing how the mysteries of the distant past may reverberate and resurface in the sinister and atmospheric present.
