NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the acclaimed author of The Flight Attendant: “Historical fiction at its best…. The book is a thriller in structure, and a real page-turner, the ending both unexpected and satisfying” (Diana Gabaldon, bestselling author of the Outlander series, The Washington Post).A young Puritan woman—faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul—plots her … Puritan woman—faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul—plots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive novel of historical suspense.
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 becomes 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 novel of historical suspense from one of our greatest storytellers, Hour of the Witch is a timely and terrifying story of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt.
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The year is 1662 in Boston. Mary, a beautiful young woman is married to Thomas who is almost twice her age. He is cruel and abuses her both physically and emotionally when he is drunk – which is almost every day. When he sticks a three pronged fork into her hand, she decides that she needs to divorce him. But gossip is an ugly thing and greatly affects the way a person is viewed in a community. Mary soon finds that many people are suspicious that she is a witch working together with the devil. As she works on getting out of her marriage, she finds that she has to work just as hard to avoid being hung as a witch.
Once again Chris Bohjalian presents his readers with a totally different book than what he has written before. Yet, it’s still a masterpiece and one that you will be engrossed in. The research that he did is apparent in every page – especially with the language used in this time period. He is also one of the best male writers of female characters writing today. His depiction of Mary – her actions and her thoughts are spot on. I will give you the same words that I give on every one of Chris Bohjalian’s books – You Don’t Want to Miss This Book!