The Ghost Women by Jennifer Murphy: Tarot, witchcraft, and the ghosts patriarchy tried to bury

On a sweltering August morning in 1972, a young art student is found hanging from a tree, posed like the Hanged Man from a tarot deck—and that image sets the tone for Jennifer Murphy’s The Ghost Women, a lush, angry, and often mesmerizing novel about power, vengeance, and the women history tried to erase. Releasing February 24, 2026, this is a book steeped in atmosphere: a remote art academy housed in a former monastery, whispers of witch trials, ancient tarot cards, and long-dead women who may not be finished speaking.

When Detective Lola Germany arrives at St. Luke’s Institute of the Arts to investigate the death of Abel Montague, she quickly realizes this is no straightforward suicide. An ancient Hanged Man tarot card tucked into his pocket—and his body arranged to mirror it—points toward ritual. As more students are discovered staged like figures from the deck, Lola finds herself navigating a campus brimming with secrets, ambition, and a self-proclaimed coven of young women who may know more than they’re willing to say.

Murphy’s prose is undeniably rich. The novel leans into magical realism, blurring the lines between spiritual and tangible, past and present. If you’re into witches, occult symbolism, and long-dead women rising—metaphorically or otherwise—for vengeance on the patriarchy, this book is absolutely for you. There’s something deeply satisfying about watching the buried rage of centuries begin to surface.

That said, The Ghost Women is as frustrating as it is immersive.

The administration at St. Luke’s, particularly Alice, who runs the school, is infuriating in a way that feels intentional but still maddening. Alice performs camaraderie with Lola while actively undermining the investigation at every turn. She instructs students not to speak to police without her and the board’s permission and consistently shields the powerful men who placed her in charge. She reads as a true foot soldier for the patriarchy—protecting institutional power at any cost, even as bodies mount. The tension this creates is effective, but it also underscores how entrenched and systemic the rot at St. Luke’s really is.

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More troubling, however, is the novel’s treatment of the Gullah community on the island. They are frequently referenced, positioned as culturally distinct from the wealthy white enclave of St. Luke’s and from Lola herself—who makes a pointed comment about “having a Gullah friend.” Yet only one Gullah character meaningfully appears on the page, and she is rendered as little more than a swamp-witch caricature. The dynamic creates a clear divide between the island’s Black residents and the white characters driving the plot, and the “othering” never feels interrogated in a meaningful way. Given the novel’s thematic investment in historical injustice, that absence is hard to ignore.

Lola herself is also a complicated figure—and not always in a satisfying way. She is hired as a lead detective straight out of the police academy, with no real on-the-job experience, and it shows. She breaks into a cabin to search it without a warrant. She leaves a student alone at an unsecured crime scene. Her investigative choices are frequently reckless. One could argue that her naiveté mirrors that of the young women in the coven, all of them playing at power they don’t fully understand. Or perhaps the issue lies in insufficient research. It’s difficult not to notice when traditional publishers allow procedural inaccuracies to slip through. For readers who are sensitive to that kind of detail, it may pull you out of the story.

The coven of schoolgirls—yes, the novel consistently calls them girls—has clearly bitten off more than they can chew. Karla, who claims descent from a witch burned on the island centuries earlier, insists she understands the forces at work and often has a spell or solution ready at hand. Her certainty borders on arrogance, which adds tension within the group but sometimes strains credibility. The dynamic among the coven members is compelling, though, especially as ambition and fear begin to fracture their unity.

I also struggled with the ambiguity surrounding the students’ ages. At times they read like high schoolers—emotionally reactive, dramatic, insular. At other moments, they’re clearly adults, living in private cabins they furnish themselves, openly sleeping together and smoking weed with minimal oversight. The novel eventually confirms they are adults, but the lack of early clarity creates a subtle but persistent dissonance. The way they are repeatedly referred to as “girls” further muddies the waters.

And yet, despite these issues, I couldn’t entirely look away.

There is something undeniably compelling about the central idea of The Ghost Women: that history is not as buried as men in power would like to believe. The tarot imagery is evocative. The forest setting hums with menace. The sense that something ancient is watching—and waiting—gives the book a haunting momentum.

The Ghost Women is imperfect, occasionally sloppy, and politically uneven, but it is also ambitious and atmospherically rich. If you’re drawn to feminist revenge narratives, occult symbolism, and stories where the past refuses to stay quiet, this may be one you’ll want to experience for yourself.

Have you read The Ghost Women, or is it on your list for February? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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

Related Content

• Jennifer Murphy — The Ghost Women: A novel – with Tayla Burney — at Conn Ave (Politics and Prose)
• I will make a terrific ghost: 5 Questions for EMT, private investigator, and writer Jennifer Murphy (The Examined Family)

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