The Witches of Bellinas

by J. Nicole Jones

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.

Mia and the other women drape Tansy in expensive clothing and spend their days fawning over their babies, while the men surf and dive for abalone. 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 lives, 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?

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Gothic, Witches, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Mystery

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 14, 2024

Reviews

[Cindy Pham]

midsommar but with california hippie vibes

[Jillian B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is Stepford Wives meets Midsommar, and one could easily picture it being turned into a Sofia Coppola movie. Readers will be drawn in by the eerily beautiful vibes, and riveted by the complex exploration of wealth and gender roles.
Full review at BookBrowse: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/review...

[Nina The Wandering Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The plans of women have been called plots, schemes, murders, but if we do not claim the future as our bodies are claimed by men, then both are gobbled up by husbands and historians.”

This was my first book by J. Nicole Jones and I devoured it!

Locked away in an old schoolhouse, Tansy Black reflects on her short stay in the small, sun-blessed, seaside town of Bellinas in northern California, home to an isolated community of artists, musicians and influencers. Run by a billionaire (Father M) and his supermodel wife–who just so happens to be the cousin of Tansy’s husband—this bohemian community believes in clean living and high vibes. The women are all named after flowers, internet and cell phones are prohibited so as not to disrupt one’s “tuning in with the universe”, and wifedom/motherhood is especially revered. Tansy had agreed to drop everything familiar with her old life in New York to move to Bellinas in hopes of winning favor and love from her husband. But the longer she had dwelled in the idyllic paradise, the more red flags became apparent. Now, believing she’ll be sentenced to death for witchcraft, Tansy tells her story in hopes of warning others.

The Witches of Bellinas gave strong Midsommar vibes with a hint of The Stepford Wives. The story is atmospheric and colorful with vivid prose that sucks the reader in. At the same time there’s a sense of unease that progresses with every chapter. I felt for Tansy’s suffocation amongst a claustrophobic community while also grappling with emotional isolation. Themes of belonging, loneliness, womanhood, nature, and the consequences of self-sacrificing for others are prevalent throughout Tansy’s story and I loved every minute of it.

Excited for this one to hit bookshelves in May!

[Zoë · Rating 3 out of 5]

you guys did you know tansy got an award in college. it was only brought up 27 times

[Laney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m going to be a bit harsh on this book because I felt like I wasted my time a bit. Reading the description was so enticing that I bought it, thinking about the possibilities of plot twists and intrigue that could happen when a woman moves to a cult to save her marriage. The descriptions compared it to “Midsommar”, which drew me to the book too.

Unfortunately, this felt like a book that the author didn’t know how to write. She seemed to have good ideas every once in a while and then filled pages upon pages of descriptions and repetitive thoughts, to the point where she mentioned the same things multiple times in the same short chapter. She talks about the wind and Ana Nacarova on almost every page. It felt like it was trying so hard to be mysterious but she gave us answers on every page. I predicted everything before it happened because she gave so many obvious clues.

I had no idea the book would simply be about new age misogyny, a cult of wealthy, blond, yoga instructors, and women who stay in the cult and endure watching anti-vaxxing films and abuse just so they can practice magic…it feels so ridiculous to read.

[kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

“They say the winds of Bellinas have driven some to madness.”
I don't know if I loved or hated this book so I don't know how to rate it... What I do know is that if I had to hear the name Anna Novakova referenced one more time I was going to rip the book in half...
I'm going to stick with 3.5 stars for now because while parts of it infuriated me, I enjoyed the prose a lot.

The writing feels a bit tedious and pretentious at times but it’s also undeniably mesmerizing and beautiful.

Read if you enjoy:
Utopian, cult-like colonies
Lucious, winding prose about nature
Fever dreams
Atmospheric reads
Feminist reads

[RT · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a mess.

[Crystal DeBoard · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Witches of Belinas by J Nicole Jones
At times the writing in this book is beautiful and descriptive. Other times it seems too wordy and rambling. I loved the idea of this book but not so much the execution. It didn't really draw me in, I didn't really connect with the characters, and overall it sort of seemed like a hot mess. This one just wasn't for me.

[Lit_Vibrations · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love a good story that involves witches but I didn’t love this one and I didn’t hate it either. This is like the third or fourth book I’ve read in the Gothic fiction genre and every time it’s always a weird reading experience. Maybe that’s the purpose because the writing wasn’t bad just the way the story is told and its delivery was rather strange.

Tansy and Guy move to Bellinas a coastal town in California to follow a cult like community created by Manny who’s basically a billionaire married to Guy’s cousin Mia. Tansy never really wanted to move to Bellinas it was Guy’s idea after they took a trip to visit. It seems as though during that visit Guy was immediately under their spell which forced Tansy to follow suit. I really hated them together Guy was never for Tansy. She knew in her gut something was wrong with that town it gave eerie vibes from the jump but she ignored her intuition. As Guy embraces their new home cause he was a fucking airhead Tansy struggles to fit in. The town of Bellinas wasn’t the problem it was the community that was rather odd. Portraying themselves as a spiritual community when they were nothing but that. After being told never to enter the woods alone Tansy does anyway and discovers the truth of their Bellinas ways.

The beginning started with Tansy being locked in the school writing a letter about what’s transpired in case she doesn’t live to tell anyone what happened. What I didn’t like is that it took soooooooo long to get anywhere in the book after that. The first half was the author describing the town of Bellinas and the things they were doing. We never get to the core of the story until 75% of the book is finished. There was also a lack of complexity of the characters aside from Manny and Tansy.

Overall, I don’t know how I feel about this book. It’s taken forever to write a review cause I’m still at a loss for words. The pacing was beyond slow for a 200 something page book. It had potential but didn’t hit the mark because it was overly detailed in the wrong places. We needed a little more action, thrill, or something. Special thanks to the author and @catapult for my gifted copy‼️

[Rachel Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wowoweewow. I really loved this!! I did not want to put this down. I generally don't read the whole description of a book going in to it which I think makes for a potentially more interesting ride.

This book gave me feelings of claustrophobia (in the best way possible?? 😬) and an increasingly uneasy feeling that things were not right...at all. Also, how could I not love a cult story with an added dose of witchy-ness?? Amazing. Gave me big, big Midsommer/folk horror vibes.

I'm closing out 2023 on a high note with this one! I can't wait for everyone to be able to get their hands on this book because I'm gushing over it 😍

Received this book in an ARC box from the bookstore I work at ❤️

[Kristy Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

…they say the winds of Bellinas have driven some to madness…

This book was so magical to me. The ominous foreboding feeling surrounded by the whimsical setting of Bellinas was everything.

The negative reviews for this book are truly baffling to me. I guess it’s mostly a vibes book so if you need a neatly wrapped up basic plot, this definitely won’t be for you.

I couldn’t have loved this anymore. 🌬️🍃🌊

[Kristen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish I could harness the wind to close this book so I didn’t waste 4 days of my life. This book is a total mess. It feels like a writing exercise to see how many classics could be name dropped while having basically no plot and ending with a random chart. Super disappointed as the blurb sounded very promising.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5* This 220 page book took me a week to read because it was just so tedious. It should have been a novella, but even then I have so many questions and no answers.

[Alicia Mesa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Recently married couple visit a cousin’s utopia. Husband pushes wife to move there and start their family. Men have all the fun and women do all the work and have the babies. Husband is a jerk. Wife is sexually assaulted by the cult leader and becomes pregnant. Wife realizes husband does not love her and her husband falls to his death during an argument. Wife hides in the schoolhouse and writes out her story. She imagines how it will all end and then the book ends.

[ThatBookish_deviant · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

This should have been a novella. At just 240 pages the repetitiveness was unnecessary and super annoying. ALL of the characters are one-dimensional, thoroughly unlikable and downright annoying. I usually enjoy books with witchy/cultish themes but wish I’d passed this one up.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cults! Stepford wives vibes! Witches! Women subtly saying gfuck yourselves to the men in their community! Mystery! This book was well paced, well laid out plot. I loved the time jumps. This was a great listen

[Jane Chicago · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m here to say one thing: how many times did she mention Anna Novakova? It is in every chapter? It must have been mentioned 40 times.
At first I think it was interesting to mention it so much because it must hold some significance. Then I grew concerned. At one point I thought the author was trying to communicate a secret message through her near constant mentioning of Anna Novakova. But no. Then I considered she hit “replace all” and accidentally replaced a common word with Anna Novakova, because no sane person would mention a book this much.
I felt like I was losing my mind.
By the end of the book I couldn’t even focus because every time she mentioned Anna Novakova it was grating my nerves. It was like a safety blanket that she needed in every scene.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

The most overwritten and underplotted 220 pages you will ever read.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hoping to save her marriage, Tansy and her husband move to an idyllic coastal town of California, and are soon ushered into a cult-like community- but an even darker secret hides beneath the facade.

The author’s note indicates that she wrote this to be like all of the books she enjoys reading. Now I just want to read all of the books she enjoys reading!

[Ilana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine. Reminded me a lot of another book I can’t remember - it’ll come to me

[AndiReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bewitching! When Tansy (Constance) and her husband move to Bellinas she isn't sure what to expect. They are warmly greeted by Guy's only living family Mia and her husband Manny. Tansy is intimidated but the women work hard to make her feel at ease.

J. Nicole Jones weaves a story of cult and community, magic and witchcraft and of course feminism. Slowly but surely Tansy is drawn into the group of women but Guy remains deaf to any of her worries or concerns about the community. Finally she is driven to make a decision. What will she do?

Claustrophobic, gothic, and creepy, This is an original tale about witches that you aren't soon to forget. #CatapultCounterpointPress,
#SoftSkullPress, #thewitchesofbellinas #jnicolejones

[The Paperback Place · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book more than the execution. I may have also discovered I’m not the biggest fan of literary fiction. The rambling paragraphs of prose were not very interesting to me but I could see the merit in describing the situations. The ending felt odd to me, especially when the premise of the book is Tansy writing a recount to herself. I think if you like literary fiction and/or the classics, this is perfect for you. Very Midsommar and part Greek Tragedy. It actually reminded me of The Fury by Alex Michaelides too.

[Jenni Mickool · Rating 2 out of 5]

The editor should be fired - I found several sentences with missing words. Further, the repetition of adjectives, especially about the wind, was bothersome. Tansy deciding she’d join the cult in the last 10 pages felt way too abrupt after she had just finished describing her hatred for it in the previous 210 pages.

[Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was amazing! It's so beautifully written. I loved the perspective it gave on how far people will go for hope of something better, even in the most dangerous situations. And how hard it can be to speak up, no matter how sure you are about what you have to say. Highly recommend. :)

[Brend · Rating 3 out of 5]

Someone is gonna love this (wasn't me, but someone who loves dramas that get nominated for the Emmys)
“Or perhaps I had overlooked this small buffet before, and it was there all along. Is all magic, I have come to wonder, simply an act of noticing?”

[Bree READERISFP · Rating 1 out of 5]

Giving this book a 1 ⭐. It was a very quick dnf.

[Sam Wescott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually really liked this book, but reading it was a little odd in some ways. The author’s writing was really evocative and some passages and their general style felt really lovely and polished. But then there was also a real bad habit of the book repeating itself. I know that it’s a somewhat surrealist and very dreamy novel and I’m sure part of that was meant to make the reader experience that sort of disorienting, blurred mindset that the main character is living through, but it honestly got annoying. Another reviewer mentioned that if they heard the name “Anna Novakova” one more time they were going to rip the book in half and I felt that in my BONES.

Plot wise, the book felt extremely Ira Levin influenced. The husband being named Guy gave me such an intense Rosemary’s Baby alert that I was able to guess a major plot point long before it was fully hinted at. But there’s also a lot of Stepford Wives in here. I do think the author absolutely nailed how a modern Stepford would be a wellness commune in a gated community owned by a tech millionaire.

I did really like the main character, but I didn’t think that her reasons for staying were very convincing. Her husband was just so deeply unpleasant from page one that it was hard to sympathize with her decisions throughout the book. It’s weird. While I was actually reading the book, I felt very in tune with the main character, but now that I have finished it and am looking back, I feel more confused and less sympathetic. Is that good character writing or bad plotting? I’m not really sure.

Ultimately, this is an extremely vibey book that’s kinda about the dangerous of vibey places. It’s a fun modern take on Ira Levin’s character-rooted domestic horror and the biggest struggle was trying to decide if I hated Guy or Manny more.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew next to nothing going in, and feel the same way coming out. I enjoyed it though. Strange and fantastical, moreso than I expected. Similar vibes to When We Were Villains and Secret History, but not quite the same.

[Morgan Dean · Rating 2 out of 5]

This draaaggged, it was so repetitive. It was basically the main character going "I should leave my husband and also all these people are weird" and then doing nothing about it on repeat for 200+ pages. There was 0 character development which I'm okay with if the character is well written but she wasn't.

[Melody · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a whimsical, culty, magical, coastal read! I was airlifted off the ground into a world of endless sunshine, whispering winds, billowing silk dresses, moonlit seashores and abalone pearls. The prose felt very poetic and lovely. If you don't like descriptive descriptions that describe, maybe this book isn't for you.

I think it does a great job at describing the tactics that cults use to draw people in and conversely how cult members stay in and defend the cult with their life. The Bellinas cult isolated Tansy geographically (Bellinas was pretty much an island), emotionally (They had a no phone policy and barely had internet so no outside contact), and mentally (her books and journals disappeared as soon as she got there). On top of that, they make you feel like you finally belong somewhere. They welcome you with open arms into their family, because "you are family." You have a community. A unit. You're not alone. So maybe they do some weird things, but it's all for your benefit. They love you, they wouldn't take advantage of you. And maybe they have some strange philosophies, but when you reallly think about them, it makes sense. And they're so intelligent and cool and wise and rich and what do you know? The humiliation tactics, the rituals, the abuse makes you better, they allow you to tap into source, to "connect" and "heal" and "revitalize" and "realign" and all the other buzz words. It was a psychological roller coaster because there were many points were I asked myself "What would I do in this scenario? Would I join this cult?" and sometimes I think I would. It's not that far fetched to think I might fall into this trap. Because when all your questions or suspicions are met with confusion or disapproval or are completely ignored, it doesn't take long for you to start ignoring yourself too. It makes it easier to coexist, and the path of least resistance is very inviting. So you let yourself be rebuilt, retaught, "realigned" in their image. You become a hive mind.

This book was a tough read mainly because it centers around Tansy and her husband's rocky marriage. She is willing to do anything, ANYTHING, to please him and gain his approval and it's so tragic because as his name implies, he's literally just a Guy. And not even a great Guy either. He minimizes her accomplishments, invalidates her constantly, blatantly lies to her, gaslights the crap out of her, lavishes attention on her publicly to gain approval but privately barely registers her existence. It is heart-breaking to read her confessions: the "I know I should have left but I didn't" sentiments. She made herself so small, so tiny to make room for him. To deliberately deny yourself and waste away in favor of accommodating you partner is a woman's most common and most egregious crime. Her pain is mine and my mother's and my mother's mother's. The fractured feminine.

What I LOVED about the story was the magic! The Witches! The way they would dance and sing into the wind and braid flower crowns for each other. The sisterhood was strong and powerful and quite literally magical! The power they hold and the way they KNEW they held it. The goddess energy radiating from them was contagious and I loved every second of it.

The ending was a little strange for me. She spends the entire book talking about how weird and backwards the town and the people are and at the end she's like "I can see a future here" Girl if you don't get your pregnant ass up and walk out of Bellinas right now. Ugh. I hate that the cult "won." I don't know what I expected, but the ending felt like a let down.