The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
Graduate student Connie Goodwin gathers her thoughts as she prepares to answer the final questions of the oral exam that will determine whether she goes on to her doctoral studies within Harvard's hallowed walls.
When the challenge is posed, she cannot foresee how its origin will deeply affect the rest of her life: "Would you please provide the committee with a succinct and considered history of witchcraft in North America."
With the success of her exam behind her, Connie begrudgingly agrees to her mother's request to find and clean out her grandmother's home -
a small bungalow hidden away at the end of a dirt road on the outskirts of Salem, Mass.
Among the numerous findings on the bookshelves she comes across a 17th century Bible that holds within its pages a key -
and in its shaft a small piece of rolled parchment reading, "Deliverance Dane."
Searching for its meaning, she finds herself drawn into (and tied to) its origins.
With the discovery of the name Deliverance Dane in the excommunication records of an old church's records she follows its lead and finds herself inexplicably involved in the history of a woman apparently hanged as a witch -
and in search of her book of "recipes" before it is too late to save the life of a loved one.
Author Katherine Howe is a descendant of Elizabeth Proctor, who survived the Salem witch trials, and Elizabeth Howe, who did not.
Her interest in the culture at the time of the trials is fed by her doctoral studies in American and New England studies and has provided her with the the material for her graceful and thoroughly spellbinding novel of a time that few contemporaries can imagine. As her chapters travel between Connie's life in the present and the lives of the accused conjurers in the 1690s, readers will find themselves entranced in Howe's eloquent story.
Ghosts of the Bluegrass
Professors at Georgetown College, authors James McCormick and Macy Wyatt instructed 23 of their students to go into the communities of central Kentucky and gather its ghost stories -
done in an effort to improve their interviewing skills.
The resulting interviews are compiled to provide "Ghosts of the Bluegrass," with tales ranging from humorous to horrifying -
and cover events from mysterious lights in an attic to phone calls from deceased family members.
In one interview a woman tells of the time her 15-year-old brother was ill, lying in bed next to a window in their country home. He saw a woman pass by and later heard her carriage as it passed over the brick walk in front of the home. He described her exactly, down to her dress and hair color. His family dismissed it as a result of his fever, until years later, in a visit to White Hall -
home of Cassius Clay -
he glanced up to see a portrait of Clay's young wife and immediately recognized it as the woman he'd seen years before. And when his parents decided to redo their front drive they encountered, well below the visible surface, an established drive of laid brick.
Tale or truth? As the leaves fall and Halloween approaches, "Ghosts of the Bluegrass" will provide the perfect accompaniment to the season.