Book-It '10! Book #17
The Fifty Books Challenge, year two! This was a library request.
Title: The Minister's Daughter by Julie Hearn
Details: Copyright 2005, Ginee Seo Books
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "'Powers of the air, be here now. So mote it be.'
Conceived on May Morning, Nell is claimed by the piskies and faeries as a merrybegot, one of their own. She is a wild child: herb gatherer and healer, spell-weaver and midwife...and, some say, a witch.
Grace is everything Nell is not. She is the Puritan minister's daughter: beautiful and refined, innocent and sweet-natured...to those who think they know her. But she is hiding a secret -- a secret that will bring everlasting shame to her family should it ever come to light.
A merrybegot and minister's daughter -- two girls who could not have less in common. Yet their fates collide when Grace and her younger sister, Patience, are suddenly spitting pins, struck with fits, and speaking in fevered tongues. The minister is convinced his daughters are the victims of witchcraft. And all signs point to Nell as the source of the trouble....
Set during the tumultuous era of the English Civil War, The Minister's Daughter is a spellbinding page-turner-- stunning historical fiction that captures the superstition, passion, madness, and magic of a vanished age."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Yet another find in the search for Pagan fiction that wasn't The Mists of Avalon or a clone thereof.
How I Liked It: I didn't notice that this was a young adult book until I had it in my hands. Which isn't to say my expectations are lower, particularly when I've just finished two of the best books I've read this year which happen to be labeled "young adult". Given that and the nature of the book, however, I was set up to compare it to the excellent Witch Child.
The packaging and summary on the cover are incorrect: the book doesn't deal with these two girls, if anything, it's Nell's relationship with the younger of the two sisters, Patience. While Grace is a catalyst of Nell's persecution, she's much less of a character than she's made out to be.
While the book can't decide if it's historical fiction or fantasy (which isn't to say it can't be both but the author isn't deft enough to weave the two styles), it has an interesting premise. Throughout the book we juxtaposition between Nell's story in 1645 and Patience's "Confession" from 1692. Patience recounts her memories from the time, of the falsehoods and accusations her older sister urges her to repeat against Nell and it isn't revealed until the end of the book (I apologize for the spoiler) that Patience's confession comes from her own persecution as a Witch in the New World (irony!). The idea of a reversal (of sorts) on the girls of Salem Village and on intolerance and suspicion itself (as well as karma) is intriguing enough to mostly carry the book past Hearn's clumsy attempted fusion of the genres as well as the all-too-tidy ending (even for, maybe especially for, a young adult book). The "history" Hearn is claiming is fairly shaky at times and particularly when it comes to the end of Nell's story (which has, one might argue, an altogether excessively happy ending).
Despite its shortcomings, The Minister's Daughter is an interesting twist on the Witchcraze, particularly England versus the fledging new colony.
Notable: Two actual historical figures appear in the book, Matthew Hopkins, the notorious Witch-hunter, and King Charles II. I actually know more about the former than I do the latter. The Hopkins storyline was plausible with what I knew, but I couldn't say for Charles the II (although I had my doubts, particularly given his role in the book). However, Hearn offers an Author's Note at the end of the book regarding the historical accuracies of the two figures.
Young Charles II apparently truly was sent out to the west country of England in 1645 for the Royalist cause, hiding out at Pendennis Castle in Cornwall before before "sailing into exile in the spring of 1646" (pg 262).
More interestingly, Hearn states she was startled to discover in her research of the young monarch that King Charles I repeatedly wrote to his son between August and November of 1645, urging him to flee the country. The author reports she never did discover why the 15-year-old Charles, reportedly "no lover of hardship-- ignored his father's instructions and dithered around the west of England during the filthiest of winters, in constant danger of falling into the rebels' hands." (pg 262). Hearn ultimately decided that the real reason didn't matter: as far as she was concerned, Charles slummed to discover and save her fictional Nell. Despite the book's many shortcomings, it's kind of a sweet fluke of sorts for historical fiction.
Title: The Minister's Daughter by Julie Hearn
Details: Copyright 2005, Ginee Seo Books
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "'Powers of the air, be here now. So mote it be.'
Conceived on May Morning, Nell is claimed by the piskies and faeries as a merrybegot, one of their own. She is a wild child: herb gatherer and healer, spell-weaver and midwife...and, some say, a witch.
Grace is everything Nell is not. She is the Puritan minister's daughter: beautiful and refined, innocent and sweet-natured...to those who think they know her. But she is hiding a secret -- a secret that will bring everlasting shame to her family should it ever come to light.
A merrybegot and minister's daughter -- two girls who could not have less in common. Yet their fates collide when Grace and her younger sister, Patience, are suddenly spitting pins, struck with fits, and speaking in fevered tongues. The minister is convinced his daughters are the victims of witchcraft. And all signs point to Nell as the source of the trouble....
Set during the tumultuous era of the English Civil War, The Minister's Daughter is a spellbinding page-turner-- stunning historical fiction that captures the superstition, passion, madness, and magic of a vanished age."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Yet another find in the search for Pagan fiction that wasn't The Mists of Avalon or a clone thereof.
How I Liked It: I didn't notice that this was a young adult book until I had it in my hands. Which isn't to say my expectations are lower, particularly when I've just finished two of the best books I've read this year which happen to be labeled "young adult". Given that and the nature of the book, however, I was set up to compare it to the excellent Witch Child.
The packaging and summary on the cover are incorrect: the book doesn't deal with these two girls, if anything, it's Nell's relationship with the younger of the two sisters, Patience. While Grace is a catalyst of Nell's persecution, she's much less of a character than she's made out to be.
While the book can't decide if it's historical fiction or fantasy (which isn't to say it can't be both but the author isn't deft enough to weave the two styles), it has an interesting premise. Throughout the book we juxtaposition between Nell's story in 1645 and Patience's "Confession" from 1692. Patience recounts her memories from the time, of the falsehoods and accusations her older sister urges her to repeat against Nell and it isn't revealed until the end of the book (I apologize for the spoiler) that Patience's confession comes from her own persecution as a Witch in the New World (irony!). The idea of a reversal (of sorts) on the girls of Salem Village and on intolerance and suspicion itself (as well as karma) is intriguing enough to mostly carry the book past Hearn's clumsy attempted fusion of the genres as well as the all-too-tidy ending (even for, maybe especially for, a young adult book). The "history" Hearn is claiming is fairly shaky at times and particularly when it comes to the end of Nell's story (which has, one might argue, an altogether excessively happy ending).
Despite its shortcomings, The Minister's Daughter is an interesting twist on the Witchcraze, particularly England versus the fledging new colony.
Notable: Two actual historical figures appear in the book, Matthew Hopkins, the notorious Witch-hunter, and King Charles II. I actually know more about the former than I do the latter. The Hopkins storyline was plausible with what I knew, but I couldn't say for Charles the II (although I had my doubts, particularly given his role in the book). However, Hearn offers an Author's Note at the end of the book regarding the historical accuracies of the two figures.
Young Charles II apparently truly was sent out to the west country of England in 1645 for the Royalist cause, hiding out at Pendennis Castle in Cornwall before before "sailing into exile in the spring of 1646" (pg 262).
More interestingly, Hearn states she was startled to discover in her research of the young monarch that King Charles I repeatedly wrote to his son between August and November of 1645, urging him to flee the country. The author reports she never did discover why the 15-year-old Charles, reportedly "no lover of hardship-- ignored his father's instructions and dithered around the west of England during the filthiest of winters, in constant danger of falling into the rebels' hands." (pg 262). Hearn ultimately decided that the real reason didn't matter: as far as she was concerned, Charles slummed to discover and save her fictional Nell. Despite the book's many shortcomings, it's kind of a sweet fluke of sorts for historical fiction.