The Heretic's Daughter [Kindle Edition]

This is a stunning book. It is the last of three books on the witchhunts I have read back to back and it is by far the best.
The narration is real and honest, making you believe that this is the actual voice of Sarah Carrier. She (narrator) describes her experiences vividly and bluntly and had me gasping aloud at times with the brusque and forthright style. There were times I had to check the dustjacket to ensure that this was indeed a work of fiction and only based on actual events as it is so convincing.
The depiction of the troubled and flawed mother/daughter relationship provoked empathy and frustration in me as I willed them to understand each other better. Finally, the healed relationship is one of the most touching I have read. The prison scenes were unforgettable.
I also felt this book allowed me more access to the Puritan psyche than others I have previously read on this subject. It also offered a form of explanation for the atrocities that occurred without forgiving them. The powerful revelation of the horror, brutality and injustice was shocking as other writers have tended to glamorise and minimise, focusing instead on the entertainment value. Ultimately, however, the book was uplifting.
I thoroughly recommend this book if you are interested in this period of American history. Kathleen Kent is an extremely clever and talented writer in my opinion and I am sure that this book will be very successful. I certainly couldn't put it down and it will stay with me for a long time.

This is a great story in the best sense of the word. The story wraps itself around the witch trials which took place in New England, Salem, Massachusetts in the seventeenth century and is told through the voice of a child, the daughter of a so-called witch. What is so stunning about the writing is the clarity and brilliant description. It strikes the reader as true to the time and place. And, unlike many modern novels today, it does not jump from voice to voice or place to place. It is an old-fashioned sort of book in its progression through the days in a straight line. It reads fluidly and realistically and does not rely on shock tactics or anything else sometimes contrived by authors. Even though I am very familiar with this period of history in America and have also read The Crucible, I found myself unable to put this book down. Reading it was a delight and created such a vivid picture in my mind that I was sad when it ended. After the trials the story jumps forward quite a bit and it might be worth another book by Kathleen Kent to give us more about the aftermath of the trials. She is so good in the period voice it would be well-worth a try.
Even if you know nothing about this historical period it is atmospheric and creates all you need to know to delve deeply into the troubling world of this time. Other reviewers give more details about the story and they do a very good job. I only want to add to their positive voices and encourage you to read this book.

This is a detailed historical fiction about a young girl's experiences of being caught up in the Salem Witch trials in Massachusetts.

It chronicles the tale of Sarah Carrier and her family and how their refusal to conform to the standards of the puritanical society in which they live effectively condemn them. Sarah's voice seems very authentic, although there are times when it is clear that the author needs to set the scene and for me there are too many explanations of things which at the time would have been not worthy of comment because they would have been every day occurences and thus taken for granted. This is one of the issues that a historical novelist has to deal with however, and Kathleen Kent does her best not to render the narrative too clunky. Certainly once it gets into its stride and she deals with the imprisonment and trial of the poor unfortunates swept up in the mass hysteria, the narrative whips along nicely.

Having said that I thought the ending was disappointment. There is a sub plot which weaves its way through the novel regarding Sarah's father and the mysterious part he played in the English Civil War and Cromwell's rise. It percolates along quietly in the background and I kept waiting for the story line to develop. It really doesn't and just kind of gets finished off at the end in quite an unsatisfactory way. I feel the book should have either developed this story more or just left it out altogether.

My other gripe is that if you have read and/or studied Arthur Miller's The Crucible, it does in less than a hundred pages what this book does in three hundred. On the other hand, if you are not comfortable with reading play texts, then this is a very good novel about a very interesting period in history.

In her debut novel, Kathleen Kent offers a unique perspective of the Salem Witch Trials: the story is told through the eyes of a child, ten-year-old Sarah Carrier, daughter of one of the accused.

The Heretic's Daughter begins months before the Salem Witch Trials. The Carrier family has just moved to Andover, Massachusetts from Billerica, hoping to escape the outbreak of smallpox there. Unbeknownst to them, one of Sarah's older brothers, Andrew, is already infected. When Andrew becomes ill, Sarah and her younger sister Hannah are sent to live with their aunt and uncle, in the hopes that this will spare them from the disease.

On her own for the first time in her life, Sarah quickly bonds with her cousin Margaret. The two girls become inseparable. Sarah also notices a stark contrast between her family life and that of her cousin. Compared to Margaret's family, Sarah's parents - especially her mother, Martha Carrier - seem cold and distant.

When Sarah and Hannah finally return to their family, much has changed. Andrew has been ravaged by the disease, another family member has died from it, and many in the community are suspicious of the Carrier family. Sarah and her mother clash with each other frequently. Rumors begin to circulate about Martha Carrier, slowly at first but gaining strength as events in nearby Salem begin to incite mass hysteria.

At first, Sarah resents her mother and feels that Martha's willfulness and pride are what have damaged their family's reputation in the community. But as the story progresses, and Martha Carrier is arrested for witchcraft, Sarah's attitude towards her mother softens. She begins to admire and love the qualities in her mother that she previously resented.... Sarah's anguish over the fate she knows awaits her mother is palpable and heartbreaking.

Kathleen Kent's prose is beautiful, frequently verging on poetic. One of my favorite passages is this description of Martha Carrier:

"It was not defiance only that made me study her so, although our cat-and-mouse-games did become a kind of battle. It was also because she, with a deliberation bordering on the unseemly, set herself apart from what a woman should be and was as surprising as a flood or a brush fire. ... But Martha Carrier was like a deep pond, the surface of which was placid enough but deeply cold to the touch and which was filled beneath the surface with sharp rocks and treacherous choke roots."

While Sarah's relationship with her mother is the driving force for the novel, I found the relationship between Sarah and her siblings to be very touching as well. When Sarah is about to leave to live with her aunt and uncle, she's given a handmade doll. Her departure came about so suddenly that the doll could not be finished before she left - it was missing buttons for eyes. One of Sarah's brothers rips the buttons from his shirt cuffs and runs after her so that Sarah will have eyes for her doll.

The Heretic's Daughter is one of the best historical fiction novels I've read this year. Kent's narrative style is so refined that it's hard to believe this is her first novel. If you enjoy excellent, well-researched and compelling historical fiction, this is a must-read. Read more ›