My book club read this (my choice) and people were utterly flummoxed by the witchy stuff. It's not mentioned on the book jacket (unless you count "Laura makes some unexpected life choices" which does not usually indicate main character decides to sell her soul to Lucifer) and no one was happy about this hard left turn into witchcraft. Lots of "..but what does it mean?", and "it's obviously symbolic". Symbolic of being a witch, I guess.

Only book which had a worse landing was The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald.