The Devil Knows Her Name: A Perfect Summerween Read

There comes a point every August when summer starts to feel a little haunted.

The days are still long. The heat hasn’t disappeared. But the Pumpkin Spice Latte is officially back, which means those of us who have been quietly waiting for Summerween no longer need to pretend we’re not already thinking about fall.

So grab your first pumpkin spice latte of the season and something appropriately witchy to read with it.

Let me start you off with my first witchy read of the season. C.N. Vair’s The Devil Knows Her Name hit the shelves today—and with its Appalachian setting, witchcraft, old bargains and folk-horror atmosphere, it may be exactly the book to mark the unofficial beginning of spooky season.

Vair’s debut takes us into the Appalachian hills, where Tess Wynne has spent a century living on the land where she was nearly murdered. In between life and death, she makes a bargain with the Devil so that her life can be spared. She would do anything to live. And the Devil heard her.

Over the next hundred years, she remains ageless and tethered to the property where she operates a wildlife sanctuary and uses her magic to protect both the land and the surrounding community. But every now and again the Devil shows up, and with that, he carries omens of things that could potentially harm the sanctuary.

Folk Horror With Its Teeth Showing

Tess’s magical protections start to warp the environment she has worked so hard to cultivate.

As the animal control officer, she takes calls to pick up roadkill and seize illegal animals. When she discovers a doe with her stomach ripped out of her, she never expected that the culprit would be its orphaned fawn.

When she takes the young fawn back to the sanctuary, she realizes there is something decidedly wrong with it. It has teeth it shouldn’t have. This fawn had eaten its way out of its mother.

Instead of destroying the animal as required by law, she decides to keep it until the young doe can be released back into the woods.

That decision begins to disturb the careful balance she has created. The residents of nearby Burrsville grow suspicious, a new pastor threatens the trust Tess has spent years building, and the Devil remains close enough to remind her that bargains are rarely made without someone eventually coming to collect.

When the World Comes For the Sanctuary

The Devil Knows Her Name works best when approached as folk horror rather than a conventional supernatural scare.

It’s the old ways vs. modernity.

The horror grows from how magic changes the land. It shows how religion can change a community and create suspicion among friends.

There is witchcraft here, certainly, and there is a Devil—but Vair is equally interested in power and land: who possesses it, who believes they are entitled to it and what happens when something expected to behave like prey decides otherwise.

This magically altered ecosystem isn’t simply scenery in this story. It feels watchful, unruly and occasionally dangerous.

So does Tess.

Beneath the witchcraft and folklore is a story about a woman protecting what she has claimed as her own—and questioning how much of herself she is willing to surrender in order to keep it, especially when the world invades the sanctuary’s borders.

Will this town succumb to a Starbucks on every corner where everyone can get their Pumpkin Spice Lattes? Or is Tess’s magic strong enough to fight back against a megachurch being built on top of the sanctuary?

Your Summerween Reading List Starts Here

There are books that demand rain, sweaters and October darkness.

This isn’t one of them.

The Devil Knows Her Name feels right for the transition—the book you pick up while summer is technically still here but you’ve already started thinking about haunted houses, old forests, witches and everything waiting for us when the days finally begin getting shorter.

Consider this permission to start Summerween early.

Preferably somewhere near the woods.

Just be careful what critters follow you home.

The Devil Knows Her Name by C.N. Vair is out now from Berkley.