Post by Alex on Nov 19, 2011 19:12:41 GMT -5
When 12-year-old Deliverance and her older sister, Remembrance Trembley, are left home all alone for weeks in the winter of 1692, the two sisters think it will be another typical dark winter- until their uncle returns.
The first strange event is the arrival of a father and son who happens to be seeking shelter on a chilly, snowy January night. As the story starts to progress, it is clear that it's not the only unusual event in the cold New England winter. However, things don't start to get weird until Susanna Martin, Remembrance's friend makes a Venus glass, wanting to know "what trade her future sweetheart should be". Shortly after that, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams start to show signs of illnesses that cannot be cured by prayer or medicine. Things go from bad to worse when the girls’ illnesses spread to other girls and all of them start seeing “specters” or invisible shapes of townspeople who are supposedly hurting them with needles, pins and other strange objects.
Around March and April, things take a turn for the worse when the afflicted girls start accusing Martha Corey, Deliverance’s mother figure, friend and an avid churchgoer, of witchcraft. Is anyone safe from the accusations of the girls and why isn’t anyone seeing reason? And more importantly, can Remembrance and Deliverance find a way to avoid accusations and prosecutions themselves?
Based on the true stories of the Salem Witch trials, Lisa Rowe Fraustino attempts to depict what truly happened in the winter of 1692. It’s a quick read and a book for all ages. I enjoyed reading it due to my fascination with the subject of the witchcraft trials and the fictional subplots involved. I guarantee that once you start reading it, you won’t want to put it down either. The author did an excellent job of creating characters that are both believable and memorable and her accuracy with the historical content is amazing. Some of her research can be found at the back of the book.