The Heretic's Daughter

Locations
Call Number: Fiction
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction	4-week checkout	Reshelving

Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Realistic Historical Fiction submitted by Sara W on June 21, 2011, 1:47am This book provided a fascinating look at Puritan life, from the reality of the Indian threat to the bad blood between neighbors and extended family members, to the extreme responsibility placed on small children.

Puritans in Graphic Detail submitted by sdunav on June 24, 2011, 9:00pm This was an excellent (and as far as I can tell) a very historically accurate novel about the Salem witch trials of 1692. The story is pretty dark - as you would expect! - and pretty graphic in parts. But Kent is really a very good writer, and she captures the daily and seasonal tribulations of Puritan life in some detail.

The religion, superstition, smallpox, bloody attacks by Native peoples, hypocrisy, jealousies among families (mostly over inheritances) and between neighbors - and the distrust of women who are a little different - are all described in a way that makes you want to keep reading about Sarah (the ten year old narrator) and her family.