Half Spent Was the Night: A Witches' Yuletide (Ami McKay's Witches)

Beloved author Ami McKay is back, bringing us a magical follow-up in the tradition of Victorian winter tales to her mesmerizing bestseller, The Witches of New York.

During the nights between Christmas and New Year's, the witches of New York—Adelaide Thom, Eleanor St. Clair and the youngest, Beatrice Dunn—gather before the fire to tell ghost stories and perform traditional Yuletide divinations. (Did you know that roasting chestnuts was once used to foretell one's fate?)

As the witches roast chestnuts and melt lead to see their fate, a series of odd messengers land on their doorstep bearing invitations for a New Year's Eve masquerade hosted by a woman they've never met. Gossip, dreams and portents follow, leading the witches to question the woman's motives. Is she as benevolent as she seems or is she laying a trap? And so, as Gilded-Age New York prepares to ring in the new year, the witches don their finery and head for the ball, on the hunt for answers that might well be the end of them.

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Published Oct 16, 2018

112 pages

Average rating: 7.5

4 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

RubyReads
Jun 06, 2025
9/10 stars
This was a fun holiday read! 🎄🧙‍♀️ Definitely a book I would read during the holidays though. I did enjoy the length of the novella and felt it was fine and paced well. I get all the negative reviews are about the price and length of the novella (at least for amazon reviews) but if you are fine purchasing it full price and want to get back into the magic and world of Witches of New York, I say go for it. ****Spoiler**** I liked we found out Perdu is a human cursed by a demon. 4⭐️ because I did feel the end was too abrupt and wish we could have more backstory, but it may left for future books Ami has planned 🤷‍♀️.

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