Binding Spell

A SMALL-TOWN FABLE OF TRANSFORMATION, MYSTERY, AND UNRULY MAGIC

A warm, offbeat comic novel about a small Indiana town upended by a would‑be kidnapper, an aspiring witch, a Hungarian herbalist, and a tangle of misunderstanding that somehow leads to love and reconciliation.

"Exuberant...the book's most enduring spell is the one the author herself has cast." ~ Chicago Tribune    

"Wonderfully benign and satisfying...as appreciative and good-natured...as one of Shakespeare's merrier comedies - the ones in which the irrational acquire some common sense and the rationalists learn to have a jolly time." ~ Washington Post

The New Yorker called Elizabeth Arthur's first novel, Beyond the Mountain, "stunning...stark and subtle" and described her second, Bad Guys, as "inspired tragicomedy." But Arthur's previous books all unfolded in wild landscapes where survival and self-discovery were inextricably linked. In Binding Spell, Arthur gives us a comedy set in the American heartland which follows a motley cast of dreamers, eccentrics, and seekers of transformation who, in a world fraught with real and imagined danger, find a way to live happily ever after.

Howell Bourne believes an international banking conspiracy is causing American farms to fail, and when two professors from Russia visit the nearby college in Felicity, Indiana, he thinks God has encouraged him to kidnap them. His sister Bailey, an aspiring witch, and Maggie Esterhaczy, a psychologist obsessed with the threat of nuclear catastrophe, are two of the characters who get swept up in the ensuing events.

Also drawn into the turmoil are Ryland Guthrie, a hypochondriacal furniture-store owner; his brother Peale, Felicity's newly elected sheriff; and Ada Esterhaczy, an 86-year-old Hungarian herbalist who is fiercely determined to see her granddaughter Maggie pregnant. And of course, there are the dogs - perhaps the wisest souls in Felicity.

As a spring tornado bears down on Felicity, what begins in absurdity becomes something unexpectedly luminous and wise - a wildly funny tale of small-town upheaval and a meditation on connection, structured like a spell itself.

Publishers Weekly calls Binding Spell "an offbeat, modern fairy tale" while Booklist says "A warm, disarming novel...With great good humor and compassion for people's foibles, Arthur delicately constructs a sunny, near-magical tale of love and reconciliation."

With a Foreword by Elizabeth Arthur's husband, Steven Bauer.