Play Book Tag discussion

3.5 stars

In 17th century Boston, Mary has been married to Thomas for 5 years. He is incredibly abusive toward her, both physically and mentally, but always when there is no one else to notice anything askew. When Mary finally decides she can take it no longer (after he has put a (new-fangled) fork (aka Devil’s tines) through her hand), she is determined to divorce him. In the meantime, though, there have been whisperings of witchcraft. There is a woman in town who dislikes Mary, and Mary and Thomas’ indentured servant also suspects Mary of witchcraft (in part, due to those forks!).

This was good. It felt slow-moving even though we got to Mary’s petition for divorce fairly early on in the book, but of course, this wasn’t the entirety of the story. There were a couple of twists toward the end. I found the bit about the forks interesting – that is, they were a new item and people looked on them suspiciously. I had no idea! I did like the book, but there are others by the author that I’ve liked better.

I thought that was fascinating too about the forks. And even the trials, how quickly they would lead away from the obvious into a panic fear based logic that could only lead to the conclusion of the devils work. That was so frightening, except that 400 years ago looks a little bit like now.

Amy wrote: "That was so frightening, except that 400 years ago looks a little bit like now. ..."

Isn't this sad?