Can You Start With Birth of the Witch? A Guide to Nora Roberts’s New Trilogy

Yes. Birth of the Witch is Book 1 of Nora Roberts’s A Coven of Three trilogy. You can start here even if you’ve never read Nora Roberts. St. Martin’s Press lists the U.S. release for November 17, 2026, and the sequel, Heart of the Witch, is scheduled for November 16, 2027.

A Coven of Three reading order

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If you like to start a series as soon as it launches, pick up Birth of the Witch. If you’d rather read all three in one stretch, keep this one on your list. There’s about a year between the first two books on the current schedule, and the publisher’s listing for Heart of the Witch describes it as a continuation of the same story.

Do you need to read The Lost Bride Trilogy first?

You can go straight to Piety Island. Inheritance, The Mirror, and The Seven Rings belong to The Lost Bride Trilogy, which begins with a family inheritance and a haunted house. Birth of the Witch introduces the McShanes and builds its own history around an island coven. If you’ve read Roberts’s earlier books, the familiar part is her interest in how a family’s past reaches into the present.

What is Birth of the Witch about?

The novel opens in 1695 on Piety Island, where the witch hunts that spread from Salem reach Niamh McShane. Two weavers share some of their magic with her before her execution. In 2013, on the same island, Neve McShane turns thirteen. Her aunts give her an antique pendant and tell her that the magic they practice goes well beyond the potions they sell in their shop. Neve is a witch, too, and the stories she’s heard about past lives suddenly have a bearing on her own. Read the setup and opening chapter at Macmillan.

Both girls are thirteen when magic enters their lives, under very different circumstances. Niamh receives it from women who offer her comfort in prison. Neve has aunts who can help her understand what she’s inherited and teach her what to do with it. That connection gives the story an intimate starting point even as Neve prepares to face a threat that stretches across lifetimes.

If the combination of island history, family magic, and an old mystery sounds like your kind of fantasy, you can sample the opening on Nora Roberts’s official blog. If you’re in the mood for a full series you can finish now, browse eight completed fantasy trilogies.

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