Celia Rees

“Words have power. These are mine.”

Mary Nuttall was just sixteen years old when her grandmother Eliza – the only family she’d ever known – was murdered. Accused of practicing witchcraft, the old woman was tortured, stripped naked, bound, and “floated” - tossed into a river to sink or swim. Her buoyancy taken as a sure sign of guilt, Eliza was pulled from the water only so that she could be hanged in public. Once trusted to heal their loved ones, Eliza’s friends and neighbors show more in this rural English town proved eager witnesses to her execution.

Rescued from similar persecution by her long-lost mother, Mary is sent away to the “New World” in search of a better life. She’s to travel with a group of Puritans bound for Salem, where they’ll join their brethren and pastor. Upon arrival, the group is dismayed to discover that their kin have moved on, to the isolated town of Beulah. After much deliberation they decide to follow, forging ahead into the wilderness with two Natives – of the Pennacook tribe – acting as their guides.

Unsurprisingly, Beulah couldn’t be further from the safe haven Mary’s mother envisioned for her child. Ruled by a Puritan preacher so strict and demanding that he proved unwelcome in Salem, Mary is in constant danger, just by virtue of being a newcomer to the community. Though she tries hard to stay under the radar, her “transgressions,” real and imagined – which include befriending members of the opposite sex; spending time alone in the forest to gather food and herbs; harboring anything more than uncharitable thoughts about the “heathen” natives; and proficiency in transcription – don’t escape the notice of Reverend Johnson. When items suggestive of witchcraft are discovered in the forest and several of the town’s teenage girls start exhibiting strange behavior, Mary’s worst fears are realized.

All of this we learn from Mary’s journal, which spans roughly a year from 1659-1660. Urged to burn it by her protector/surrogate mother Martha – its opening sentences (“I am Mary. I am a witch.”) alone being sure proof of guilt – Mary instead hides its pages inside a quilt. Discovered more than three hundred years later by one “Alison Ellman” (one of Mary’s descendents, perhaps), Mary’s journal stands testament to the horrors she and her kind endured.

In Witch Child, Celia Rees has created a work of historical fiction that’s perhaps more honest about the misogyny, racism, and religious bigotry of the time than are many high school textbooks. Women who threaten the patriarchal power structure – those who have special skills or knowledge, such as healing or above average literacy, or who are independent and live outside the bounds of marriage – are threatened with the specter of witchcraft to ensure compliance. Likewise, Puritan attitudes about the native inhabitants of the land are every bit as cruel and barbaric as they accuse the indigenous people of being. Where Reverend Johnson sees the land that will become Beulah and thinks that God has set it aside especially for him, Jaybird and White Eagle recognize it as the summering lands of their people, cleared and cultivated by them and ransacked and stolen by the Puritans while it lay vacant in the winter.

Chilling and captivating, Witch Child is suitable for readers young and old. Though the story drags a little at the beginning – the slowest part being the voyage – the pace picks up once the colonists reach America. While the reader has a vague idea of how the story will end (Mary must survive to have at least one child), this doesn’t detract from the feeling of suspense and urgency. In fact, Mary’s narrative ends rather suddenly, in a jarring conclusion that left me wanting more. Luckily, there’s a sequel (Sorceress) – which I ordered not a half hour after finishing Witch Child.

Trigger warnings for copious amounts of racism, misogyny, and speciesism. In particular, the scene in which Mary sees the whales for the first time broke my heart. Her friend Jack’s reaction to this magnificent sight?

“’One day, I mean to hunt them.’ He mimed picking up a harpoon and flinging it over the side. ‘I mean to have my own ship and I will hire men to go after them, for they are here in abundance and there is great wealth to be made from them….’ […] Maybe it was the sea glittering beneath him, but his eyes seemed full of coins.” (page 78)

http://www.easyvegan.info/2013/02/04/witch-child-by-celia-rees/ show less

Audiobook.

I enjoyed this quite a lot -- there were sections so gripping I had to sit in the car to finish the scene. I particularly loved the depiction of the strong and lasting friendship between Nancy and Minerva.

It was interesting to see how the author handled the embrace of a piratical life by the various characters. I would have liked to see both Nancy and Minerva question the morality of their actions a bit more. I could certainly sympathize with both of them (especially Minerva, a show more former slave) feeling that the piratical life was the only one that could afford them freedom, but I did feel as if some of the ethical questions were glossed over more than I would have liked.

But overall it was an entertaining and very atmospheric tale of high adventure that I quite enjoyed listening to! show less

There are tons of books set in World War II but not many set in the immediate period after the war. Yes, as this book shows, it is just as ripe a period for literature as the war years.

Edith Graham is a single school teacher who lived in Coventry during World War II. As the unmarried sister she was expected to continue to live with her mother and take care of her. The family was most upset when they discovered that she had taken a posting in Germany with the British Control Commission show more helping to get the education system restarted in Germany. At least that was her cover story; she was also recruited by her cousin Leo who was with MI6 to learn as much as she could about Nazis who were in hiding. Leo was particularly interested in their mutual friend Kurt von Stabenow who had gone to Oxford before the war and become friendly with Leo and more than friendly with Edith. Kurt had trained as a doctor and so was an asset to the Nazi extermination and experimentation process. Edith had been devastated when she went to visit him before the war and learned that Kurt was engaged to a Prussian countess. On a later trip she met Kurt's wife, Elizabeth, and to her surprise rather liked her. Leo thought that if Edith could find Elizabeth then she would lead them to Kurt. Dori, another friend of Edith's who had been a spy during the war, also wanted to find von Stabenow because she thought he was responsible for the deaths of a number of women spies who were caught during the war. Dori wants Kurt brought to justice but Leo on behalf of the British government wants to recruit him to work in research. So everyone is using Edith for their own ends and she has mixed feelings about that. Nevertheless she is more successful than an amateur could be expected to be which draws her into danger. The ending caught me completely by surprise.

The recipes and menus that introduce each chapter really bring this book to another level. They are included because Edith uses recipes to send coded messages to Dori based upon an old cookbook. The author found just such a cookbook in her aunt's home while cleaning after her death. Her aunt had, like Edith, worked in Germany after the war and inside the cookbook there were numerous handwritten recipes which was all that remained of correspondence from that time. Such is the genesis of an intriguing book. show less

Brilliant! I haven't been so absorbed in a post WW2 novel for ages!

Not you're usual post 1945 European reconstruction story. This is set mainly in Germany after the surrender.
Edith Graham decides that now is the time to do her bit and she applies to work for the British government Control Commission for Germany, concerned with rebuilding that nation and searching for war criminals.
Before she leaves London for Germany she is briefed by Vera Atkins about possibly discovering the fate of four show more British women agents dropped behind enemy lines who disappeared. Two other women will form part of this coterie, her friend Dorie and journalist Adeline Parnell.
Edith hits on the idea of using recipes as a coding method for sending messages between them.
Coupled with that is a request from her cousin Leo who's in the Secret Service asking her to make contact with an old flame, Count Kurt von Stavenow. It seems Kurt is a wanted war criminal, a Doctor involved in the most despicable of experiments.
Berlin is a hotbed of swirling competitive government agencies from the US, to Russia and Britain, all trying to gain information. Then there's Harry Hirsch, a member of the Jewish Brigade, acting as a pipeline for people moving to Israel and involved in tracking down high ranking Nazis and their sympathizers hidden amongst the European communities.
The lives of the ordinary people who have fled to places like Hamburg are stories of deprivation, starvation, inadequate shelter, and a lack of fundamental needs. Edith is involved in education. Black marketing is rife, as is the existence of the Nazi hierarchy, driven underground yet existing in relative comfort.
Riveting and compelling I was fully onboard and fully absorbed by the charged plot. The various characters introduced were real and present.
Simply put--a fabulous read!

A HarperCollins ARC via NetGalley show less