Between Good & Evil: Curse of the Windsor Witch's Daughter

Connecticut Witch Trials Trilogy #3

by Beth M. Caruso

For Alissa, life was once sweet, wrapped in the loving kindness of her mother, Alice, and innocent play with cousins. But a deadly epidemic and her mother’s false witchcraft conviction ended her childhood abruptly. She survived by leaning on her Aunt Rhody and forgetting the dark details that changed everything. However, as ugly rumors of another “witch” emerged in Windsor, Alissa could no longer hide from the past or herself. Through friendship and the support of her husband and later, her children, she confronts disturbing dreams and tragic events which unlock memories, reveal deeply-held secrets, and feed the growing uncertainty that she had played a part in her own mother’s death. The historical novel, Between Good & Evil seeks to understand the trauma of Alice Young’s daughter, Alice Young Beamon (Alissa), as she suffered in the aftermath of her mother’s hanging for witchcraft. It explores the role of friendship and love in overcoming pain and keeping those we love alive in respectful memory.

276 pages, Paperback

Published March 19, 2024

About the author

Award winning author Beth M. Caruso grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and spent her childhood writing puppet shows and witches’ cookbooks. Interested in French Literature and Hispanic Studies, she pursued and received a Bachelor of Arts diploma from the University of Cincinnati. She later obtained Masters degrees in Nursing and Public Health.
Her latest passion is to discover and convey important stories of women in American history. One of Windsor is her debut novel. The Salty Rose: Alchemists, Witches & A Tapper in New Amsterdam is the sequel. It received the 2020 Independent Publisher's of New England Book Award in the category Genre Fiction. Beth can be contacted through her website http//:www.oneofwindsor.com.

Reviews

[Beverly Titus · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story begins in Windsor, Connecticut's oldest town, and ends in Massachusetts. The life of Alice (Alse) Young is so important that it took three books to tell the whole story, ending with the lasting effect on her daughter in "Between Good and Evil." Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, Beth Caruso brings together all the fibers of this true story. The history is accurate; the fiction is believable. We must have an understanding of history (where we have come from) in order to chart a better course to where we want to go. The witch hunts were real. Let us not repeat them!

[Susanne Aspley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Connecticut Witch Trials Trilogy, by award-winning author, Beth M. Caruso, brings to life the fate of Alice ‘Alse’ Young, colonial America’s first witch-hanging victim, and the lives of her daughter, family members, and other wrongfully accused women.
In this third and final novel, Between Good and Evil: Curse of the Windsor Witch’s Daughter (2024), we follow Alice Young Beamon, Alice Young’s daughter who survives despite her trauma after losing her mother and witnessing more witch accusations and killings in Connecticut and beyond.
Caruso immerses the reader into the passions and fears of the era, heroes are few but still show up to confront the enemies of the innocent. This book can be read as a stand alone novel, but I recommend starting with the first novel in this series, One of Windsor: The Untold Story of America’s First Witch Hanging (2015), which sets up Alice’s story and introduces readers to her family members and key players in the Connecticut witch trials.
The second novel, The Salty Rose: Alchemists, Witches & A Tapper in New Amsterdam (2019), is both a prequel and sequel to One of Windsor in which Alice’s family member, John Tinker, works with alchemist and Connecticut governor John Winthrop Jr. to stop the witch trials after they have exploded in Connecticut. It includes the story of an accused Dutch woman, Judith Varlett from New Amsterdam and the tavern keeper, Marie du Trieux who appeals for her rescue from the gallows in Hartford during the Hartford Witch Panic.
Caruso has dedicated over a decade of through research into this trilogy, and has delivered a remarkable trilogy of fascinating books.
Highly recommend!