Fact or Fiction: Something Witchy This Way Comes

Choose fiction, a travelogue or both! Either way you'll be treated to some witchy New England fun.

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

In the indescribably hilarious We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry, the girls on the 1989 field hockey team in Danvers, Massachusetts (think Salem Village) aren't going to take it any more – losing, that is. Taking possession of their own fortune they each vow dark deeds to the fiendish field hockey gods and seal the deal by signing their names in an Emilio Estevez notebook. Led by team co-captain Jen and her "Claw" – that lovingly curled and hair sprayed bang we all rocked in the '80s – the girls ramp up the mischief and unleash their inner demons so the powers of Emilio and darkness will help them win state. Wriggle in to your Gitano jeans and put a comb in your back pocket because this novel will absolutely take you back to the most awesome decade ever. 

A Season With the Witch by J.W. Ocker

Every October ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties (and witches, of course) indulge in month-long merriment in the town synonymous with American witchcraft: Salem, Massachusetts. Oddity-enthusiast J.W. Ocker moved his family to downtown Salem for the month of October to experience this witchtastic revelry with tours of historical sites, wax-heavy witch museums and all manner of creepy cemeteries. From the Haunted Happenings Grand Parade on October 1 to the final fireworks on Halloween, it is 31 days of Halloween hoopla. With lots of cheeky authorial asides, Ocker ably examines the cheesy tackiness of witch tourism, the true and sobering facts of the Witch Trials, the issues surrounding city branding, and well, ever so much more. A Season with the Witch will surprise and delight you and probably convince you that a trip to Salem is definitely in order, just not in October.