If you’ve read even a chapter of The Ordinary Bruja, you know Marisol Espinal is not your typical “chosen one.” She isn’t eager. She isn’t confident. She doesn’t wake up one day thrilled to be the next link in a magical bloodline.
She wakes up confused.
Disconnected.
Deeply hesitant.
And honestly? Same.
Marisol is the young woman who didn’t know who she was—not because she wasn’t paying attention, but because no one ever told her. No one gave her the language. No one pointed to her inheritance and said, this is yours. Instead, the people who should’ve guided her—through fear, trauma, or silence—let her fumble in the dark.
And like many of us do when faced with the unknown, she chose comfort.
She chose invisibility.
She chose ordinary.
But here’s the thing I’ve learned—and what I teach my kids, whether I birthed them or they came into my life through marriage:
There comes a point in young adulthood when you are faced with a choice.
You either accept what you were (or weren’t) taught…
Or you break away.
You unlearn.
You relearn.
You grow.
Marisol, reluctantly and resentfully, chose the latter. Not because she was ready—but because her family’s souls were quite literally being tormented on Hallowthorn Hill. Because the past wouldn’t stay buried. Because Salvador—the manipulative ancestor who cursed the family’s magic—was still lingering, still feeding off their silence.
So yes, she was pushed.
But she still had to walk.
And that’s the beauty of her journey. She’s not fearless—she’s frustrated. She’s not the girl with the glowing destiny—she’s the girl who looks in the mirror and wonders if she’s too late.
Writing Marisol was, in many ways, writing myself.
Because I too spent years clinging to comfort, masking self-doubt as practicality.
I too had to unpack what was inherited, what was indoctrinated, and what was mine to define.
And like Marisol, I came to realize that growth doesn’t come when you’re ready.
It comes when you’re needed.
Marisol’s story isn’t about magic saving her.
It’s about her saving herself—bit by bit, choice by choice.
So if you see yourself in her—if you too are hesitant, uncertain, angry at what you didn’t know—just know that this journey isn’t about perfection. It’s about intention. It’s about saying, “I don’t know who I am yet, but I’m ready to find out.”
That’s where the real magic begins.
Ready to meet Marisol Espinal? Preorder The Ordinary Bruja now:
The Ordinary Bruja: Book One of Las Cerradoras Series – Johanny Ortega
Marisol Espinal has spent her life trying to disappear from her family’s whispers of magic, from the shame of not belonging, from the truth she refuses to face. She’s always wanted to be someone else: confident, capable, extraordinary.
But when strange visions, flickering shadows, and warnings written in her mother’s hand begin to stalk her, Marisol is forced to confront her deepest fear: what if she isn’t extraordinary at all? What if she’s painfully ordinary?
Yet Hallowthorn Hill doesn’t call to just anyone. And the more Marisol resists, the stronger its pull becomes. The past she’s buried claws its way back, and something in the mist is watching—waiting for her to remember.
If Marisol cannot face the truth about who she is and where she comes from, the same darkness that destroyed her ancestors will claim her, too.
Somewhere in the shadows, something knows her name.
And it’s time for Marisol to learn why.
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