The Ordinary Bruja by J.E. Ortega shows us the histories we’ve been taught to forget

What do we inherit from the generations before us—magic, shame, resilience, silence? In J.E. Ortega’s novel The Ordinary Bruja (coming November 4, 2025), Marisol Espinal returns to her hometown of Willowshade, Ohio, after her mother’s death and finds herself face-to-face with the family secrets she’s been running from. The story unfolds with an atmosphere of both dread and wonder, as Marisol confronts not only the haunting presence of Hallowthorn Hill but also the pieces of her own identity she’s been taught to bury.

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The novel is steeped in Dominican folklore and written with a lyricism that brings the supernatural to life. The hill itself becomes a character—watching, waiting, whispering—and what it wants is Marisol’s surrender to fear. But Ortega makes clear that the greater threat isn’t the folklore itself, but the way Marisol has been taught to erase herself: her culture, her curls, her curves, her magic. The suspense is as much psychological as it is spectral, and the real horror comes from how shame and generational trauma can consume us if we let them.

Reading this book, I realized how much of my own understanding of history has been flattened and whitewashed. At first, I’ll admit, I struggled with suspension of disbelief. Could there really be a Dominican family whose roots in Ohio stretched back generations? Growing up in the Midwest, I was taught a very limited version of history: Indigenous peoples displaced, Europeans settling, enslaved Africans forced here. That was the narrative, and it left little room for any other story. But fiction has a way of poking holes in the stories we’ve been sold, and Ortega’s novel pushed me to question my assumptions.

Like Marisol turning to Google in her search for her family history, I stopped mid-read and did my own research. What I found was eye-opening. In fact, Dominican settlers helped establish the first Catholic church in Ohio in Somerset in the early 1800s. Migration from the Caribbean has been happening for centuries, not just in the past few decades as many of us were led to believe. That realization reframed the book for me—not as an implausible fantasy but as a reflection of how complex and hidden our histories really are.

This is why fiction matters. Stories like The Ordinary Bruja remind us how little we know, especially those of us who grew up within whiteness. Too often, American education erases the full truth: that Black and Brown people from the Caribbean, Central, and South America have been part of the fabric of this country for as long as there have been ships crossing its waters. And many who migrate here today are not “newcomers” at all but descendants of Indigenous peoples and of Africans whose forced migration was the bedrock of this nation’s wealth. White America has exploited these populations for centuries. If anything, they have more of a claim to this land than those of us who inherited privilege by way of colonization.

That’s why reading #ownvoices novels is not just about appreciating diverse stories—it’s about dismantling the myths that uphold inequality. Ortega’s novel shows us that the supernatural doesn’t just haunt us; the past does, too. And unless we confront it, it will keep consuming us.

The Ordinary Bruja is a chilling, poetic, and necessary novel. It is a coming-of-age story, a ghost story, and a cultural reckoning all in one. Marisol’s journey to embrace her heritage and her power mirrors the work so many of us need to do: to stop shrinking ourselves, to stop denying the truths that scare us, and to start remembering who we were meant to be.

The Ordinary Bruja by J.E. Ortega releases November 4, 2025. This is one you’ll want to pre-order, especially if you’re drawn to folklore, magical realism, and stories that challenge how we see history itself.

What about you—have you ever had a book send you digging into history you thought you already knew? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

An advance reader copy of this book (ARC) was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Summary

When Jack Utley loses his daughter just as his business is about to soar, it seems he’s traded financial gain for Callie’s life. After an encounter with a mysterious woman on the eve of Callie’s funeral, Jack wakes up to find that time has somehow rewound to the morning of Callie’s accident. Jack gets an opportunity that most grieving parents can only dream of – he saves his daughter’s life.

Now that Jack has been forced to reflect on everything he has to lose, he resolves to do better. He’s determined to spend more time at home with his family and repair the relationships that have suffered over the years while he’s been so focused on work. But as Callie’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre, Jack realizes he has a lot more room to improve than he realized – and it might be too late to save his daughter after all.

For fans of We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Push, and Baby Teeth.

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