Hour of the Witch

by Chris Bohjalian

Book Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the acclaimed author of The Flight Attendant: "Historical fiction at its best.... The book is a thriller in structure, and a real page-turner, the ending both unexpected and satisfying" (Diana Gabaldon, bestselling author of the Outlander series, The Washington Post).

A young Puritan woman--faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul--plots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive novel of historical suspense.

Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years-old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life.

But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary--a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony--soon becomes herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight to not only escape her marriage, but also the gallows.

A twisting, tightly plotted novel of historical suspense from one of our greatest storytellers, Hour of the Witch is a timely and terrifying story of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt.

Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385542437
• ISBN13: 9780385542432
• Release Date: May 2021
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

My Favorite Fall read of this year

Loved this story from start to finish. A lot of heightened emotions reading this, as there are some descriptions of physical violence.. but it was a great story and it kept me guessing until the end. I highly recommend this book if u are a historical fiction fan.

Disappointed.

I thought this would be better than it was. I've read Chris Bohjalian's "Midwives" multiple times and absolutely loved it so I think I was expecting more. I enjoyed the plot to this story but I found it lacking.