T.E. W. (terez93) reviewed on 9/13/2022 + 323 more book reviews

This novel definitely seemed that it was setting the scene for a sequel. Mary is an orphan, raised by her grandmother, who is killed by villagers when she's accused of witchcraft. As the relative of an executed witch, Mary is living on borrowed time, until she's taken away by a wealthy benefactor (who isn't what she seems), to be sent to the Colonies across the sea with a Puritan family. Left with little other option, Mary takes what few possessions she has and makes the perilous journey to the wilds of the New World, which become even more ominous as the group who had sailed before had departed the town of Salem for the wilderness, seeking to establish a City of God, under a tyrannical and fanatical ruler whose word is law.

Don't want to give too many spoilers here, but this was one of the better historical fiction accounts I've read about this period, probably because it spent so much effort humanizing the characters and describing in a great wealth of detail their many travails in crossing the ocean, with the ever-looming threat of death, from disease and privation as much as from the relentless and unforgiving sea. Things didn't improve much upon arrival, where the land they found was populated with with hostile natives whose land the settlers sought to occupy, wild animals, and an unforgiving environment with a climate never experienced before. No less pernicious was the pervasive internal strife, among both families and individuals, where "elites" of the town, men and women alike, both looked down upon and policed their communities with an iron rod.

We often forget the almost unimaginable hardships endured by those who traveled to an unknown shore, to live according to their own conscience and belief, misguided though it may have been in many respects, which nonetheless still provided the foundation for the world in which we inhabit today. Problematic though it often was, as also noted in the novel , when Mary is told of the losses encountered by her new-found friend, a native boy, Bluejay, whose family, and, indeed, much of his people and way of life, caused by disease introduced by the settlers, the hardships endured by the settlers paved the way for what was to come. The tale here is told in rich detail, describing the events a sojourner would have indeed encountered in leaving all they knew behind, to search for something better.

As we see, however, the Old World was not completely left behind. The settlers brought their superstitions and prejudices with them, which caused even more hardship and misery. The generation before the notorious Salem witch trials was no less fearful of spectral malevolence, which seemingly permeated every aspect of life. Even learned "healers" such as apothecaries were not wholly safe, as anything not understood by the populace at large was immediately suspect. Another aspect of the novel I appreciated was that it kept the fantastical elements to a bare minimum, focusing instead on the characters, whose experiences could indeed have been those of any number of actual persons who lived and died so many centuries ago, who carved a new life from the untamed wilderness.

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