Adriana Mather

How to Hang a Witch is a smart look at the history of the Salem witch hysteria, its origins, and its aftermath in the guise of a YA thriller set in the modern era. It might sound like an odd premise, but it works really well. Ms. Mather does an excellent job fairly presenting both sides while touching on many of the mass hysteria’s causes and effects. She never diminishes what occurred, and by setting her story in Salem, she shows its lasting aftermath.

One of the more fascinating aspects show more of How to Hang a Witch is the fact that Ms. Mather is herself a direct descendant of Cotton Mather, much like her fictional counterpart Sam is. This gives her story a legitimacy that one might not realize is important to a work of fiction but ends up making all the difference. For instance, one can envision that much of what Sam faces upon her entrance into Salem’s social world is based on Ms. Mather’s real-life experiences. The antipathy generated by the Mather last name seems farfetched because it feels impossible that a town would hold a grudge for 200 years. However, because of Ms. Mather’s own history, it suddenly seems quite probable. After all, Salem is a town that never really recovered from the trauma of the witch trials so long ago even if they have found ways to hide their hurts.

Sam is a likable heroine, missing much of the angst that is so typical of young adult novels. She makes plenty of mistakes one can attribute to her youth, but she has a backbone that is refreshing to see and makes her a strong role model. She proves a formidable opponent to the Descendants, not backing down from their bullying. More importantly, she proves willing to befriend the very same girls who are dead set on making her life miserable. Her ability to rise above the petty machinations of high school is what really sets Sam apart from other young adult heroines.

The story itself is a fascinating modern-day retelling of the Salem witch trials without getting too kitschy or heavy-handed in the allegorical elements. Ms. Mather treats those long-ago events with care, not trivializing the damage wrought to the families or the town itself nor glossing over the more gruesome details. She may simplify some of the reasons for the trials but admits in her author’s note that she does so because the reasons are too complex to detail in a novel for young adults. Sam is a worthy heroine and handles the discrimination and odd happenings with aplomb. How to Hang a Witch is a novel I raced to finish and immediately gave it to my daughter to read. It is one of the more enjoyable YA novels I have read in a while, and I recommend it to anyone fascinated by the Salem witch trials. show less

I will say one thing for Adriana Mather‘s ancestors. They are certainly an impressive lot. Directly descended from Cotton Mather himself, she puts those ancestors to good use. This time around, finding a letter from an ancestor who actually survived the Titanic serves as the inspiration for her newest novel. Haunting the Deep is another entertaining, suspenseful mystery with plenty of teen snark, magic, and a dash of romance.

There really isn’t much to the story. It takes place six months show more after the first novel, and Sam is still experiencing some trauma from what happened to her and to the Descendants. When the theme of this year’s Spring Fling is announced, Sam just wants her life back to normal. Except the theme seems to mirror her recurring dreams about the Titanic. Suddenly enchanted objects start wreaking havoc, and the Descendants and Sam realize they have another magical foe on their hands. Who that person is, what this person wants, and just how far this person is willing to go to get it remains to be seen, but Sam soon realizes time is running out. The rest of the novel is a rush of magic, secrets, and danger.

Haunting the Deep is the type of novel you read purely for entertainment. It is not a story through which you will learn about yourself or begs for introspection. It does not explain society or provide historical information. It is simply a fun, escapist novel about witches that just happens to tie to the author’s own ancestry. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. show less

After spending most of her life in a small town called Pembrook, November's dad enrolls her in a private school for a couple of weeks while he helps her aunt after a break in at her home. While on the way, November blacks out and wakes up at Academy Absconditi, where there is no technology and everybody seems out to kill her. When she begins to take classes, November realizes that the games that her father and aunt played with her as a child were meant to prepare her for what she would face show more in this school as the stakes get higher by the minute. Learning more about her family's history and her mother's death makes her conscious of the fact that her problems are bigger than just what is happening in this school and that there is nobody she can trust.

Killing November combines aspects of both the Harry Potter and Hunger Games series. Student interactions are Machiavellian to the point of being absurd. Also, it is hard to believe that any father, especially one in this situation, would leave his daughter as unprepared as November's father does in this story. Other than November's frustration and disbelief in her situation, other emotions don't come through as clearly, making it difficult to care about the characters. Overall, this is a well developed plot with lots of twists and turns, but it is a little difficult to connect with the characters. show less

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would have a deep and obsessive attachment to a YA paranormal romance series, and yet here we are. It’s a bit more than a year since I read the bananas kooky and super awesome “How To Hang A Witch”, and I was waiting with bated breath to finally get my hands on book two of the series. I knew that it was going be a series, and that I’d be able to gallivant with my beloved witch Samantha and her ghost boyfriend Elijah once again. The moment show more that I found out it was finally coming out, I was excited. And when I found out that the main plot point involved The Titanic, oh man….

If I were more cynical or less inclined to give this series all the passes because of my affection for it, I’d probably call out Mather for taking another part of her personal family history to fuel this book (if the next one takes place during another significant event that her family happened to be a part of I will start to really question). But as of now I’m just happy to be along for the ride. Mather has really fallen into a strong stride with her characters now, as Sam no longer feels like she’s trying to hard to be cynical and her friendship with The Descendants is on easy and natural footing. I was worried that bringing her Dad into the dynamic might make things a bit tricky, especially since he doesn’t know about his ex-wife Vivian being a witch who tried to curse him and Samantha, only foiled because of Samantha’s own dabbling in magic. But luckily, he adds a new foil for Sam to interact with, another skeptic who she is trying to hide herself from.

The Titanic theme was a little harder for me to swallow, though I did overall enjoy it enough. I think that my reticence is less because of how Mather approached it and more because I worked in an exhibit that was all about the Titanic during my museum days and I’ve been pretty burned out on the topic ever since. It also made some of the inaccuracies more glaring than they would have been otherwise. For example, there is mention of the Steerage passengers being locked behind gates so that First and Second Class had access to the lifeboats first. Yeah, that didn’t happen, so it was a little disheartening that that ‘fact’ was kept in, especially since I was under the impression that Mather did the research before writing. Plus, yeah, I have the skeleton in my closet that I did indeed see “Titanic” in the movie theater four times, and so my lingering embarrassment paints my judgment. It wasn’t even because of Leo and I don’t really want to talk about it…

But hey, let’s be real. I’m not here for the Titanic plot line. I’m mostly here for Elijah, the handsome and mysterious ghost who had to leave his lady love Sam behind when he crossed over at the end of “How To Hang A Witch”. Or did he? Spoiler alert, he did not.

I really like Elijah and Sam as a couple, mostly because while Elijah does have his old world ideas of chivalry and protecting her, Sam shuts that shit down and he respects her and her decisions. He isn’t in this one as much as he was in the first book, but when he is there it’s really great and romantic. Plus, that kind of lets Sam show off that she is more than her love life, and given that some of the more popular paranormal romances stumble in this regard, it’s refreshing to see her have her own agency and personality. True, there’s a bit of a kerfuffle regarding Jaxon, the boy next door who is also keen on Sam (damn love triangles), but the good news is that Sam doesn’t really waffle or question where her heart is. She knows exactly who she wants, and so this love triangle is basically defunct, which is the best kind of love triangle. True, it adds for needless tension that I just kind of skipped over, but it made it easier to hate Jaxon, which I was down for.

OH, and the female friendships are in full swing in this book! In “How To Hang A Witch” there was an enemy situation between Sam and the Descendants, but now that the conflict has been resolved Sam, Alice, Susanna, and Mary are BFFs for life and it’s good seeing positive female friendships in a YA novel. We also are getting to know each of them a bit more, and I can only hope that this continues because I need to know more about all of them. Especially Alice, that sassy and snarky Queen Bee!

Overall, “Haunting The Deep” continues a series that I’m still totally invested in. I hope I don’t have to wait long for the next one, as I’m not sure I can go for another year without another Elijah fix. show less