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Mar 21, 2014dgl4024 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This book starts out a bit slow but becomes more compelling with each passing page. The story alternates between the present day Boston/Salem area and the Salem Mass. witch trials of the 1640's. Deliverance Dane is a woman put on trial for being a witch in 1640's Salem Mass. Connie Goodwin is a present day woman working on her doctoral dissertation while trying to prepare her mother's house for sale. Each time the story switches to the past, the time setting has advanced forward several years, occasionally decades. So after Deliverance we read about her daughter, then grandaughter and so on. I found the author's portrayal of the accused witches of the 1640's very believable and easy to understand how the people's fear of the un known fueled their strident pursuit of the so-called "witches". Taken as a whole the story is satisfying and it has a happy ending. I read some of the reviews that said the ending was cartoonish. There was nothing about the ending that was or even hinted at being cartoonish for me. I found it to be a very satisfying conclusion to the story. The only drawback was that I found some of the narrative of the past events to be a bit tedious but it wasn't excessive and overall didn't detract from the story.