A Circle of Uncommon Witches Summary, Characters and Themes
A Circle of Uncommon Witches by Paige Crutcher is a fantasy novel centered around a powerful lineage of witches cursed for generations.
It follows Doreen MacKinnon, a young witch from a Scottish bloodline burdened with a deadly curse: she must find true love by her 30th birthday or face death. The story blends magic, family secrets, and the struggle against dark forces rooted in past betrayals and tragic romance. As Doreen seeks to break the curse, she confronts manipulative relatives, ancient magical trials, and the ghost of a doomed love from centuries ago. It’s a tale of resilience, sacrifice, and the fierce power of love intertwined with witchcraft and legacy.
Summary
Doreen MacKinnon belongs to a family of witches cursed by a bitter feud dating back centuries between the MacKinnons and the MacDonalds. This curse dictates that Doreen must find true love by the time she turns 30, or she will die.
Her family’s tragic history is bound to the ill-fated love between Ambrose MacDonald and Lenora MacKinnon, whose forbidden romance ended in heartbreak and unleashed a powerful, lasting curse on their descendants.
Doreen’s cousin, Margot, takes a different path, marrying a man under magical influence in an attempt to escape the curse’s deadly grip. This choice distances her from Doreen, who is more rebellious and determined to break the curse through knowledge and magical power.
When Margot leaves a cryptic note mentioning the “Dead House,” Doreen embarks on a quest to find this hidden place, rumored to imprison Ambrose MacDonald himself.
Uncovering family secrets proves difficult, as Doreen learns that her Aunt Stella has altered her memories to hide the truth. With the aid of magical, enchanted trees on the MacKinnon estate—portals that allow her to travel through time and space—Doreen recovers lost memories during a powerful supermoon ritual.
This revelation leads her to the Dead House, a shadowy prison where Ambrose remains trapped in a storm of magical torment. Moved by Ambrose’s suffering, Doreen uses her own blood and magic to break his bonds.
But their escape is fraught with danger. Aunt Stella, enraged and wielding dark magic, attempts to rebind Ambrose and punish Doreen. Showing courage and sacrifice, Doreen absorbs the curse meant for Ambrose, and with his help, they flee through a magical portal, leaving behind the MacKinnon estate and embarking on a mission to end the curse for good.
The MacKinnon coven fractures under the strain, with Stella and another witch, Kayleen, leading a faction that condemns Doreen’s actions as reckless and dangerous. They perform a magical ritual to cast Doreen and Margot out of the coven, marking them as outcasts.
During this exile, Doreen is transported to a mystical realm resembling the Scottish coast, where she learns from the spirit Eleanor that many MacKinnon souls are trapped in a cursed afterlife. Doreen discovers she is the only one with the power to break the cycle.
In this otherworldly place, she encounters Ada Rose, the Queen of the Order of the Dead—a mysterious and dark figure who offers cryptic guidance but also tempts Doreen with offers of power at a moral cost. Doreen refuses Ada’s manipulative bargains, determined to break the curse through love and sacrifice rather than submission to darkness.
As Doreen and Ambrose grow closer, she uncovers more painful truths about her family’s past, including manipulations by Stella that had bound her to a man she never truly loved. Despite the emotional weight, Doreen’s resolve strengthens.
With Margot’s support, she prepares to face the ancient Trials of Bheannachd—magical challenges that hold the key to ending the curse.
The trials are brutal tests of strength, spirit, and sacrifice. The first trial involves “freeing the heart from the stone,” a task requiring Doreen to connect deeply with her emotions and the earth’s ancient power.
Throughout the trials, Ada reappears, attempting to sway Doreen with offers of easier power in exchange for loyalty. But Doreen remains steadfast.
Alongside Ambrose and Margot, Doreen confronts layers of betrayal and heartbreak embedded in their family history. The final trial demands a sacrifice greater than any before—Doreen must give up what matters most.
Faced with this impossible choice, she casts a climactic spell, offering her love for Ambrose not to bind or control it, but to free it. This act of selfless love dissolves the curse, ending centuries of pain and magical suffering.
With the curse broken, Ambrose is restored to mortality, and the generations-long feud between the MacKinnon and MacDonald families finally comes to an end.
Doreen and Margot return to a changed coven, where an uneasy but hopeful truce with Stella signals a new beginning. Choosing to live and love on their own terms, Doreen and Ambrose step forward into a future defined by freedom and genuine connection rather than magic-bound fate.
Characters
Doreen MacKinnon
Doreen emerges as the central figure around whom much of the narrative revolves. She is portrayed as a strong-willed, rebellious witch determined to break the centuries-old curse that plagues her family.
Unlike her cousin Margot, who initially chooses to conform by marrying under magical influence, Doreen resists resignation and dives deeply into her magical heritage to reclaim her agency. Throughout the story, her character evolves from one bound by family obligations and mysterious manipulations—such as Aunt Stella altering her memories—to a resolute individual willing to confront painful truths and make significant sacrifices.
Doreen’s journey is marked by her courage, moral compass, and an emotional depth that binds her not only to the curse but also to Ambrose. Her willingness to face the Trials of Bheannachd and resist seductive offers from powerful figures like Ada highlights her integrity and commitment to love and freedom over power or vengeance.
Ambrose MacDonald
Ambrose is a tragic figure central to the curse’s origin, trapped in a supernatural binding for much of the story. His character is defined by his suffering and fragmented memories, yet he embodies hope and the possibility of redemption.
As the key to breaking the curse, Ambrose’s emotional connection with Doreen becomes a driving force in the narrative. Despite his torment, he acts as both a catalyst and a partner in the quest for liberation, reinforcing themes of love transcending suffering and family legacy.
His gradual recovery—from imprisonment in the Dead House to becoming mortal again—mirrors the undoing of the curse itself. Ambrose’s presence is both mystical and deeply human, giving the story emotional stakes beyond the magical trials.
Margot MacKinnon
Margot provides a compelling contrast to Doreen. Initially, she attempts to escape the family curse through more conventional and pragmatic means, such as marrying a man under magical control, reflecting her desire for stability or avoidance of conflict.
However, her character is not static; over time, she wrestles with her family’s ethical compromises, especially Stella’s manipulative actions. Margot’s journey moves toward solidarity with Doreen, ultimately committing to helping break the curse and facing the trials alongside her.
This evolution underscores themes of sisterhood, loyalty, and the courage to challenge one’s inherited path. Margot’s role balances vulnerability with growing strength, making her an essential part of the coven’s fractured dynamics and healing process.
Aunt Stella
Stella represents the darker, more controlling side of the MacKinnon coven. She manipulates magic and memory to maintain power and uphold the family’s status quo, even at the cost of individual freedom and truth.
Her fury at Doreen’s rebellion and attempts to recapture Ambrose reveal her as an antagonist driven by fear of losing control and clinging to a cursed legacy. Stella’s role is complex; while she embodies manipulation and opposition, the story hints at her motivations being rooted in protecting the family line, albeit through questionable means.
Her uneasy truce by the story’s end suggests layers of complexity and potential for redemption, making her a nuanced figure within the family and coven politics.
Ada Rose, Queen of the Order of the Dead
Ada is a powerful, enigmatic figure who serves as both a tempter and a gatekeeper of ancient magical wisdom. Her historical resentment against patriarchal powers and her pride in her achievements provide context for her opposition to the MacKinnon line.
Ada’s attempts to coerce Doreen into submission through offers of power contrast sharply with Doreen’s moral resolve, creating tension around the use of magic and authority. As the embodiment of the trials’ stakes, Ada represents both the harshness of magical tradition and the consequences of ambition unchecked by compassion.
Her presence challenges Doreen’s values and commitment, acting as a catalyst for growth and reaffirmation of Doreen’s true purpose.
Kayleen
Though less prominently featured in the summaries, Kayleen appears allied with Stella, contributing to the coven’s division and opposition to Doreen’s actions. Her role supports the theme of fractured loyalties within the coven, highlighting the tensions between tradition and change, control and freedom.
Eleanor
Eleanor acts as a guide and source of knowledge for Doreen, revealing critical truths about the curse and the afterlife imprisonment of MacKinnon souls. She functions as a mystical mentor figure, helping Doreen understand the spiritual and emotional weight of her quest.
Eleanor’s revelations provide essential context for Doreen’s mission and deepen the narrative’s exploration of legacy and redemption.
Jack
Jack, though briefly mentioned, represents a tragic pawn in the family’s manipulations, bound to Doreen through dark magic rather than true love. His presence highlights themes of deception and the consequences of coercive magic, serving as a personal trial for Doreen in reclaiming her autonomy.
Themes
Burden of Curses as a Metaphor for Ancestral Trauma and the Weight of Legacy
At the heart of the novel lies a deeply layered exploration of curses not merely as magical afflictions but as symbolic manifestations of ancestral trauma passed through generations. The MacKinnon bloodline’s curse, which hinges on doomed love and fatal destinies, embodies the ways in which unresolved pain, betrayal, and historical grudges can imprint themselves on descendants.
This theme probes how family histories are not just stories but active, haunting forces shaping individual identity and choice. The characters’ struggles reflect the tension between accepting inherited suffering as fate and reclaiming agency to rewrite that narrative. Doreen’s quest to break the curse becomes a profound journey of confronting inherited emotional and magical scars, challenging deterministic views of lineage and destiny.
Power, Control, and Autonomy within Matriarchal Structures
While the story’s magical coven suggests a female-centered power network, it reveals that matriarchal systems can harbor their own forms of manipulation, control, and oppression. Stella’s manipulative hold over family and coven members, using memory alteration and binding spells, illustrates the subtle yet profound dangers of power exercised without empathy or accountability.
This dynamic challenges romanticized notions of female power by showing how internalized hierarchies and emotional control can fracture sisterhood and collective strength. The novel interrogates autonomy, highlighting the cost of reclaiming one’s selfhood in a system that enforces conformity and punishes dissent. Doreen and Margot’s expulsion and defiance reflect a struggle not only against external curses but against the toxic internal politics of inherited power structures.
Love, Sacrifice, and Moral Integrity as Instruments of Healing and Liberation
Love in A Circle of Uncommon Witches transcends simplistic romance to become a transformative, sacrificial force crucial for breaking cycles of pain and magic. The narrative challenges conventional depictions of love as possession or control, instead presenting it as an act of liberation—most poignantly in Doreen’s ultimate sacrifice where she offers love not to bind but to free.
This theme explores how true love demands moral integrity and courage to resist manipulation, even when it promises power or safety. The trials and choices faced by Doreen underscore that healing inherited wounds involves painful selflessness rather than vengeance or coercion. Through the interplay of love and sacrifice, the novel conveys a vision of empowerment rooted in compassion and ethical steadfastness.
Symbolic Use of Trials and Magical Challenges as a Reflection of Psychological and Spiritual Transformation
The ancient Trials of Bheannachd serve as more than plot devices; they symbolize the inner psychological and spiritual metamorphosis necessary to break generational curses. Each trial—be it freeing the heart from stone, waking the slumbering giant, or the final act of sacrifice—mirrors stages of confronting buried emotions, reckoning with guilt, and embracing vulnerability.
The process reflects archetypal journeys of initiation and self-discovery, where strength is forged through suffering and insight rather than brute power. By weaving magical trials with emotional reckonings, the story emphasizes that true transformation is holistic, requiring integration of mind, heart, and spirit. The trials highlight how confronting one’s shadow and ancestral wounds is essential to achieving personal and communal liberation.
Historical and Patriarchal Narratives through Magical Feminism and Revisionist Mythmaking
Ada Rose, as Queen of the Order of the Dead and a figure of ancient resistance, embodies the novel’s critical engagement with historical and patriarchal power. Her backstory and motivations reveal how marginalized or suppressed female power can become twisted by resentment when denied justice or recognition.
The narrative subverts traditional histories, like the reign of King James VI, by inserting alternative mythologies that reclaim female agency and magical heritage. This theme examines the complexity of feminist resistance—not as simplistic empowerment but as fraught with moral ambiguity, pride, and the potential for perpetuating cycles of pain. Through Ada’s interactions and Doreen’s moral choices, the story critiques and reimagines patriarchal legacies, advocating for a nuanced reclamation of power grounded in healing rather than revenge.