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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I’ll admit that sometimes historical fiction can be less than riveting…this novel is the opposite of that. Completely riveting. I was spellbound by the entire read, everything about it—the plot, the setting, the time period, the historical events but especially the characterization of the protagonist, Mary Deerfield. The framework behind it all is impeccable research that seamlessly dovetails into exquisite descriptions and language. Just go read it…you’ll see.
(Side note: a special treat was character names such as Peregine, Rebeckah, Zebulon, and Valentine sprinkled in with more traditional ones.)
Bohjalian’s stylistically distinctive, sagacious language is a linguistic feat—apt & pitch-perfect to narrate this incredible epoch of early American #HistoricalFiction—nothing short of scintillating brilliance. Masterfully conceived literature at it’s finest!
A woman wants a divorce in 17th century Boston… she must be a witch.
After withstanding all the domestic abuse she can, the final straw prompts Mary Deerfield to seek the courts permission for divorce. Uncommon in those days, this petition goes to trial and the allegations of her husband’s violence and cruelty quickly get overturned as a woman’s lies. But the trial is not over. Far from it.
Chris Bohjalian has not written another witch hunt/witch trial book. The divorce trial here appears to be historically accurate based on the trustworthy research Bohjalian is known for. But the quick change of events in these court proceedings is a solid study of gender, social dynamics, and a fascinating but sad time period. Engaging and easy to invest in, this novel is an enjoyable genre mesh of mystery/thriller and history with a satisfying ending. Highly recommend!
I’ve started off my summertime reading list with Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian. It’s a slow burn, tension-building historical fiction story about the struggles a young puritan woman endures in 1660s Boston. Thought provoking! It’s the kind of story that sticks with you long after you finish reading it.
Chris Bohjalian has written a riveting work on the triumph of the human condition,in Boston during 1662,when a woman too outspoken or intelligent can easily find herself at odds with the prevailing fanatical leaders in the community ,When Mary Deerfield a young woman is tortured at the hands of a violent husband the court rules she may not be given a divorce and must remain in the abusive marriage. Drawn to desperation Mary plots to kill this monster and backs down at the last moment .Instead she plans an escape with the man she loves. When her plan is discovered she is accused of witchcraft and jailed. The night before she is scheduled to be hung an unlikely woman helps her escape,with the young man she loves. How wonderful in the face of adversity courage and justice can at times prevail!
Like slavery, witchcraft stains the American psyche. In Puritan Boston, xenophobia prevailed. The Devil wasn’t an abstract idea. Women, in particular, were suspect. When 24 year-old Mary Deerfield files for divorce from her brutally abusive husband, she shakes the foundation of the godly Boston community. Because of her father’s wealth and prestige, she skates around the whispers of potential witchcraft. But the tribunal of men hearing her case doesn’t grant the divorce and decree she must return to her husband. (Husbands are supposed to treat their wives with respect and love so where else should she be than beside her husband?). The suspense builds as Mary plots to escape; even death as a hanged witch would trump being Thomas Deerfield’s wife. The beautiful prose adds depth to each flawed character. That prose often suggests logic that later become credible. The revelation of a killer’s identity comes as less of a surprise than a sigh. Not a read-in-one-sitting book but one to be savored and pondered for months to come.
Very insightful into the Puritan beliefs of Boston and the early settlers of the 1600s. Realistic characters, although loosely based on actual people of the time. A great read!
This is my favorite book by this author. It’s anything but a dry, drab historical account. This historical fiction – about a Colonial era New England woman accused of being a witch – is alive, clever and well-imagined, and the audio narrator does a fantastic job! Did anyone count the number of THEEs and THOUs???
In Colonial Massachusetts, laws of society were dictated by the men who seemed to be exempt from the restrictions placed upon women at that time. The story is told with excepts from the trial of Mary Deerfield being accused of being a witch. She was 19 years old when she married Thomas Deerfield, who was a 45 year old influential man. People’s lives revolved around their Separatist religion often spending hours at the church. Ironically, this practice did not ensure chastity or good will within the community. Thomas Deerfield had been married before to Anne Drury who apparently died after falling off a horse. Their daughter Peregrine was married to Jonathan Cooke, a young carpenter with whom they were blessed with children. They were close in age to Mary which presented many awkward situations. After many years of trying to be obedient to Thomas, Mary was still subjected to verbal and physical abuse especially when he was drunk. They had a live in indentured servant, Catherine, who often overlooked the abuse desiring to win favor with Thomas.
Ironically, the same religion used to govern people was always used to excuse a man’s bad behavior granting the man resolution from his sin. Women who disagreed or dared to speak their opinion were classified as witches who were then tried and hanged. This story described such a difficult journey for Mary Deerfield as she tries to divorce Thomas after he stabs a fork into her hand requiring months of disabling pain from the broken bones. Mary becomes desperate and seeks assistance from several people to support and provide refuge from Thomas’s ire. It’s a compelling story not unbelievable for the time period with an ending which gives hope for the future of women in society.
I received a complimentary digital copy from Edelweiss and NetGalley vis the publisher. My review is voluntary and unbiased.
Hour of the Witch a tour de force work of historical fiction — an engrossing study of domestic abuse, divorce, societal pressures, and witchcraft, as well as a captivating legal thriller, with a final twist that is inventive, surprising, and extremely satisfying.
Author Chris Bohjalian masterfully sets the scene, convincingly recreating and transporting readers to 1662 Boston. The city’s population is exploding as ships arrive from all over the world bringing goods. The Puritans drink beer, eat from trenchers, and do not use folks because they resemble pitchforks: “the devil’s tines.” Bohjalian found the fact that Puritans could be so afraid of forks one of the most fascinating aspects of their thought processes. So Mary’s father is a businessman importing forks from Europe where they are just gaining favor, primarily among the nobility.
A fork is the weapon Thomas Deerfield uses to attack his young wife. Thomas is boorish, controlling, and cruel. Mary has thus far failed to conceive a child, a fact that leads to gossip and speculation among the townspeople, and fuels Thomas’s verbal abuse. Puritan society is a patriarchy founded on religious beliefs, and Thomas is the worst example of the misogynistic world in which Mary exists. Women are to stay in their place, and those who don’t suffer severe consequences. Thomas is also physically abusive, and his violent attacks upon Mary have escalated over time, growing increasingly savage.
Mary’s mother gifts them eight silver forks, “each the size and rough shape of a spoon, . . . but Mary couldn’t imagine what she was supposed to do with the forks. . . . She’d heard of these utensils with three tines and she knew they were tools of the Devil.” Her mother insists that even people in Boston will use them because they “are not inducements from Satan; they are but gifts from thy parents.”
But a fork does become the tool of a devil . . . named Thomas Deerfield. Mary accurately predicts that he will not tolerate having forks in his house. One morning Mary finds a pestle and two forks buried in the yard. Catherine, the Deerfields’ servant, insists that Mary must have placed them there, and killed her brother, even though Mary tried to save him by providing “simples” (natural remedies such as herbs). She accuses Mary of being a witch. The commotion rouses Thomas who, at first, insists that Mary is “too simple to be a witch.” But he decides to test Catherine’s theory and in a harrowing fit of anger, picks up a fork and slams it, “tines down, into the bones in the back of her hand.” At that point, Mary fully realizes that she is in grave danger and if she stays in the marriage Thomas will eventually kill her.
Thomas is not just a stereotypical bully. “He believes in his heart that he’s looking out for his wife. He does it in ways that are obscene, cruel beyond belief,” but in line with Puritan notions. He justifies his abuse, claiming that he inflicts it because he fears for Mary’s immortal soul and, as her husband, has a responsibility to discipline her in order to save her from eternal damnation. He fears for his own social standing and reputation, as well. His behavior is sanctioned by a society that permits men to discipline their wives.
Mary determines “to do something incredibly rare.” She resolves to divorce Thomas, “even if it subjects her to allegations of witchcraft.”
Puritans were terrified of Satan, in part because “they had no explanations for certain life events and natural disasters.” Mary is a beautiful, intelligent young woman, but she is modest. She accepts the societal constraints within which she must live — men have dominion over women and she would be content within that familial structure. But that dominion cannot extend to being beaten by her husband. For a long time, she has been hiding the bruises and making up stories about how she has injured herself when it was impossible to conceal the effects of Thomas’s fists striking her. Still, summoning strength and a sense of self-worth that she never knew she possessed, she finally stands up for herself. She reaches her limit and uses her voice to say “Enough!” She insists that she deserves to be released from a toxic relationship with a monster. Part of her motivation is the fact that she dreams of a life without Thomas in which she is loved and cherished by another man to whom she feels an increasingly irresistible attraction. She goes out of her way to encounter him, daring to spend time talking with a man who values her intellect. On top of that, Mary dares to maintain a friendship with Constance Winston, an older single woman who lives alone on the wrong side of town, and serves as a role model, mentor, confidante, and co-conspirator. She is an expert on simples and tried to help Mary become pregnant when, after three years of marriage, she still had not conceived a child. And Mary turns to her again when she is utterly desperate to escape her circumstances, a choice that could prove disastrous. That Mary will be labeled a witch becomes inevitable, in part due to her own actions.
The story is based partly on the first divorce in America on the ground of cruelty. There were five legal bases for divorce — polygamy, desertion, adultery, impotence, and cruelty — and thirty-one cases on record. One was on the ground of impotence, and only one was based on cruelty. Bohjalian pondered, “How much courage must it have taken in Puritan Boston for a woman to stand up against the stern men who formed the Court of Assistants and petition for divorce?” He imbued Mary, his protagonist, with that courage and unbreakable spirit.
The first part of the book is called “The Book of the Wife,” with the second titled “The Book of the Witch.” Although religion permeated every aspect of their daily lives, Puritan marriages were, surprisingly, deemed a civil, not sacred, covenant. For that reason, divorce was permitted and the wife was entitled to one-third of the marital estate. When Mary tells her parents that Thomas has abused her, they vow to protect her. Her father declares, “This won’t stand. I’m appalled. Let us go see both a friend and a magistrate. . . . Mary and Thomas were married by a magistrate, and I will see to it that they are divorced by a magistrate.” Mary’s parents love their daughter, but, being good Puritans, they are responsible for having married her off to Thomas. They take her back into their home when she leaves Thomas and the divorce trial proceeds. But they fear for her safety. Obtaining a divorce proves to be anything but simple or uncomplicated. Mary soon becomes the target of a full-fledged witch hunt with her very life at stake.
Each chapter in the book is preceded by an excerpt of the testimony elicited during Mary’s trial, a technique that heightens reader curiosity and ratchets up the tension. And the courtroom scenes are riveting and believable. Mary must convince a fourteen-member all-male panel of jurists that her account of marriage to Thomas is true and meets the legal standard of cruelty. Soon, Mary is embroiled in a second trial with few options left to her. At one point, a magistrate refers to her as “a nasty and sharp-tongued woman,” a reference Bohjalian is certain will not be lost on his readers. He wanted the story to be contemporary and happened to be writing it during the ill-fated Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh.
Bohjolian effectively tells the story utilizing the language of the time period from Mary’s vantage point. He compassionately reveals her thought processes, desires, and fears in the hope that his readers will take Mary into their hearts. It is impossible not to, because she is a sympathetic character with whom female readers, in particular those who have experienced differential treatment because of their gender, will readily empathize. Her parents are equally endearing, and their struggle to balance their realistic assessment of Mary’s predicament against their desire to see their beloved child healthy and happy is both engrossing and heartrending. Every supporting character, including Thomas’s daughter Peregrine and Constance, the woman who dares defy societal conventions, is fully imagined and intriguing.
Hour of the Witch is an absorbing and entertaining fictional tale. But it is also much more. It is the contemporary tale Bohjalian sought to create and “among the timeliest” — and most timeless — he has ever penned. The parallels between 1662 Boston and America in the #MeToo era are inescapable and thought-provoking. Bohjalian hopes readers will ask themselves, “Oh, my god, how have we not come further in the last three hundred and fifty years?” Indeed.
Hour of the Witch is one of the best books of 2021, and destined to be deemed a classic.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Readers’ Copy of the book.
I have been a fan of Chris Bohjalian after reading Midwives in the late 90’s and have read the majority of his books. Hour of the Witch is a gripping historical suspense set in Boston in 1662. You don’t want to miss this one!
I love all his books. Each one is so different then all his others.
This was definitely a page turner.
First of all, WOW! This was my first book by Bohjalian and now I can’t wait to read the others.
You’ve got historical fiction, romance, courtroom drama… all things I love!
When I first started reading it took me a second to get into the old dialogue but once my brain engaged I took off. It took me longer to read than normal just because life has been busy but when I was able to find time to read I flew through chunks of it.
There was nothing about this book I didn’t like. The pace was excellent. I was kept guessing throughout and was not able to predict the ending at all. Often I wanted to scream at the treatment of women and the double standards that they had to live by. They way they were treated and looked down upon by men was awful, but even more infuriating was the way women treated each other, especially for their own personal gain. Ugh!
What more can I say, read this book, you won’t regret it!
Bohjalian has a wonderful talent for creating page-turning upmarket fiction, and “Hour of the Witch” is yet another example of why he remains one of my favorite authors. Meticulously researched, well-plotted, and a riveting storyline.
Thank goodness attitudes about gender have changed over time! Because once you read this novel, you’ll understand how whimsically dangerous it was to be a woman in 1600s Boston.
Mary Deerfield is the daughter of a prosperous merchant, full of curiosity and intelligence and aware of her own self-worth. Her parents arrange a financially secure marriage to an older, also prosperous, miller who is a widower with a grown daughter.
So, what options are open to that same young woman in the Puritan world of the 1660s when she realizes she is married to a pillar of society who is also a vicious abuser? A husband who believes his cruelty is simply the necessary manifestation of a husband’s proper role as disciplinarian. What redress is possible? Is divorce available? Will the courts provide justice? Can Mary get help perhaps from the church? Or will her parents or friends intervene?
Chris Bohjalian explores all these questions and more in this diffcult-to-read story of a society where women wield little power and men are quick to use religion, the law, and superstition to blame them for all that is misunderstood about the world. As a woman, I was extremely uncomfortable with Mary’s powerlessness and how easily individuals could make accusations against her —— with little or no proof— and still have those accusations believed.
HOUR OF THE WITCH is NOT historical fiction that paints a flattering portrait of our country’s Puritan settlers. But it IS a very compelling study of historical gender roles and the constancy of our darker human nature.
Chris Bohjalian takes readers to Boston, Massachusetts in 1662 and 1663. Mary Deerfield, 24, the daughter of a prominent and well-to-do merchant, is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield. Thomas, 25 years older than Mary, has a married daughter, and owns a large gristmill. He is also verbally and physically abusive towards Mary, and has been since the early days of their marriage.
When the abuse intensifies in both frequency and severity, Mary decides to file for divorce, something almost unheard of in Puritanical America. The first half of the book tells of the events leading up to her petition for divorce, and the hearing. The second half of the book is about the events after the hearing. I can’t divulge more without diminishing your enjoyment of the book.
The story is well-paced, intense, and captivating. It is fascinating to look back and be forced to face the reality of a woman’s life in those times. A husband had virtually total control over his wife, “disciplining” her at will and as he saw fit, couching the often brutal abuse as fulfilling his responsibility to train her in the ways of the Lord to save her soul. Women who dared to speak up were punished privately and publicly, and often accused of being a pawn of the devil, or a witch.
A must read for lovers of historical fiction, early American life, feminism, witch hunt genres.
My sincere thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for allowing me to read a review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
This is so “Real Housewives of Boston” circa 1662!
I have been looking forward to this book and it did NOT disappoint! It has a complete Real Housewives vibe going on but it’s perfectly weaved into the era with language and all. Perfectly done and very unique!
I absolutely loved this book! 5 stars!
Chris Bohjalian has written a thought-provoking story about a young woman in puritanical Boston. Mary Deerfield, 24, has been married to an increasingly abusive Thomas for five years. When he stabs her hand with a three-pronged fork – the ‘devil’s tines’ – that she dared bring into their home, she sues for divorce. In this time of accusations of witchcraft, Mary gets caught up in a world where women must stay in their place and assigned role in society.
Mary is a wonderfully complex character and not all innocent as many characters in a story like this could be. She is an active character who lusts, sins, and fights to the end. The author does a nice job illustrating what a woman’s life might be like in this time, when the struggle to live a godly life conflicts mightily with human frailties and basic human emotions.
Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian is an excellent historical fiction that takes place in Puritan territory, Boston 1660s. This book os fascinating and I loved every minute of it.
We get to see young Mary who is smarter and stronger then females were “allowed to be” during a time when women were supposed to be subservient, silent, and honoring thy husbands, the “masters of their domain”. Mary tries, but her horrific older husband is on his second wife, he is two-faced, a drunk, and beats Mary often. Mary finally decides that she has had enough and wants to leave this scoundrel. Divorce is not completely unheard of, but this is a volatile time when anything said or done could be construed as the work of the devil. Without any ways to prove or disprove gossip and coincidences, women can easily be accused of being a witch, which unfortunately is what unfolds. It is terrifying to see how easily someone can be accused and potentially convicted and/or sentenced to death. It is terrifying to be honest.
The author then is able to weave a thoroughly researched story that follows along this route, while the reader (meaning me) is gripping the edge of their seat hoping that Mary will be able to rise about her situation and succeed. I will leave the finish to the future reader to unfold themselves.
This is an excellent book that is so unique and fantastic, that I will be remembering this for quite some time.
Excellent
5/5 stars
Thank you EW and Doubleday books for this awesome ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.
I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 4/20/21.