The Occult

The overarching theme of Hex Hall is the occult and the concept that witches, shapeshifters and other beings exist among humans.

The book’s primary character, Sophie Mercer, is established as a witch in the book’s first chapter. When Sophie arrives at Hecate Hall, she is surprised to see some of her fellow students, which include shifters like werewolves, faeries and fellow witches and warlocks, but only because she has been raised by a human mother and has never come into contact with her own kind before. Throughout the book, the existence of magic and its use for both good and evil is accepted as a natural concept, so the reader must suspend belief in order to understand and appreciate the plot.

One of the underlying themes is the fact that magic exists for both good and evil, and, sometimes, somewhere in between. Although...