Salem

In Salem, Mary Sibley is a witch with control over the witch trials. Then John Alden, a man she once loved, returns and threatens that control. That is the set-up. It gives me two reasons to feel uneasy before the story has gone any further: the trials themselves, and the question of what Mary might do to keep her grip on them.

The fear here starts with power. The supernatural part is unsettling, but so is the idea of someone steering events that affect other people’s lives. I would put it at three out of five for scares. That is a guide to the premise, though, rather than a promise about how often it will make you jump. If witch stories appeal to you most when the trouble is tangled up with human feelings, Mary and John give you a place to start.

This is one for a dark evening when you want a period setting and a reason to be suspicious of whoever seems to be in charge. I would save the conversation for afterwards. Trying to follow a story about witch trials while someone talks through it sounds like an ordeal of its own.