The women in Ava Morgyn’s novels inherit dangerous things — not money or houses, but magic threaded through bloodlines, the kind that burns when it’s held too long and destroys when it’s let go.
Morgyn, a USA Today bestselling author whose earlier novel The Witches of Bone Hill drew praise from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and NPR, will appear at Vroman’s Bookstore on Wednesday, April 1, at 7 p.m. to discuss and sign her fifth book, Only Spell Deep, published March 17 by St. Martin’s Griffin. She will appear in conversation with Dahlia De La Vega, an LA-based book reviewer and the voice behind the literary social media account of page sand print.
The event lands at one of Pasadena’s most enduring cultural institutions. Vroman’s, founded in 1894, is the oldest and largest independent bookstore in Southern California. The Colorado Boulevard store, which was named Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year in 2008, hosts hundreds of free community events each year and has welcomed authors ranging from Joan Didion to President Bill Clinton. It remains a working literary commons even as owner Joel Sheldon continues to seek a buyer for the business after five decades of family stewardship.
Only Spell Deep follows Judeth Cole, a woman haunted by the magical abilities she was forced to suppress as a child and the catastrophic fire that killed her family. Seventeen years later, living in Seattle under an assumed name, Jude is drawn into a clandestine circle of practitioners led by a charismatic figure named Arla, whose pursuit of an imprisoned entity called The Fathom drives the novel’s central conflict. The publisher describes the book as a story where “Rebecca meets The Craft,” according to St. Martin’s Griffin marketing materials.
Author Katy Foraker, in a published review, called the novel “beautifully written and richly immersive,” adding that Morgyn “builds a world that feels both mythic and real, where gods walk among us,” according to the publisher’s promotional materials. Fellow author Alyssa Palombo described it as “a dark parable of feminine rage and power,” according to the same materials.
Morgyn has built her career on fiction that interrogates the relationship between family history and supernatural inheritance. She studied English Writing & Rhetoric at St. Edward’s University and now lives in Houston. Her adult novels — The Witches of Bone Hill and The Bane Witch — explore witchcraft as a metaphor for feminine agency and legacy, a thread that Only Spell Deep continues. She has also published two young adult novels, Resurrection Girls and The Salt in Our Blood, and maintains a blog on child loss.
The paperback edition of Only Spell Deep is available for purchase at the event for $19. Vroman’s Bookstore is located at 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 449-5320 or visit vromansbookstore.com.
In Morgyn’s fiction, the most dangerous magic is never the kind you choose. It’s the kind that was always yours — hidden, inherited, waiting.
AVA MORGYN BOOK SIGNING & DISCUSSION AT VROMAN’S Date & Time: Wednesday, April 1, 2026, 7:00 PM. Venue: Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101-2116. Phone Number: (626) 449-5320. Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-04-01/ava-morgyn
