to witch or not to witch...





my musings:a review

 


My name is Cyn and I have a serious addiction to books. 

Today I'm reviewing the book listed below. Actually I call my reviews "musings" because I typically keep them very brief and more impressions than anything. If I include spoilers (a rarity) I will warn you.

 





Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years-old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life. But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary--a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony--soon finds herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight to not only escape her marriage, but also the gallows. A twisting, tightly plotted thriller from one of our greatest storytellers, Hour of the Witch is a timely and terrifying novel of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt.



I have a confession - I really wasn't a fan of Bohjalian's The Red Lotus (pub 2020). I LOVED LOVED LOVED The Flight Attendant though...

And I'm glad to say that I really enjoyed Hour of the Witch despite it's very very very slow start. But if you stick with it (you should) the pay off is HUGE.

Although bogged down with DETAILS, I mean after all historical fiction, it is still intriguing & thought provoking. It is clear there is a thoughtfulness and vast amount of research put into it all by Bohjalian. 

I enjoyed the complexity of Mary as a character- she was likable(but still not Cassie! LOL)

I was provided an ARC ebook from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. 

This is will be available on 5/4 in both print and ebook formats.













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