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"The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane" - Katherine Howe
http://www.book-views.com/articles/111/1/The-Physick-Book-of-Deliverance-Dane---Katherine-Howe/Page1.html
Ray Palen
Ray Palen is an amateur actor, book/film reviewer and runs a successful Theatre group on Long Island with his wife. An avid reader who regularly reads up to 3 books per week, Ray has been published on multiple on-line and national print publications. He lives with his wife, Debbie, in Suffolk County, Long Island, NY. 
By Ray Palen
Published on 07/21/2009
 
Modern day Salem and the historical Salem of the infamous Witch Trials era meet head on in this intelligent, literary novel.
"The Physick Book Of Deliverance Dane"
4.0 out of 5 stars Modern Day Witchcraft Tale With Salem Roots., July 21, 2009
By  Ray J. Palen Jr. "Ray" (Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews
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Katherine Howe's first novel, though released during the summer months, has become a bestseller that is contrary to typical summer fare. This is an intelligent novel about a Harvard graduate student, Constance "Connie" Goodwin who is researching for a doctoral dissertation and finds herself entrenched within the history of the infamous Salem Witch Trails.

The research subject she becomes obsessed with, Deliverance Dane, had been tried and hung as a witch in July, 1692. The object that intrigues Connie is an alleged notebook that Deliverance Dane reportedly had known as a "Physick Book". Dane was popular for healing ill members of her community as well as performing mid-wife duties on many occasions. Was Deliverance a witch or merely an early practioner of herbal medicine? When Connie begins to rennovate her late Grandmother's Marblehead, MA, home, she finds many interesting items that may link that location (and her own family) to the Deliverance Dane legacy.

Moving back and forth between 1991 and the Salem Witch Trial period, this novel reveals more and more clues as the narrative builds to a stunning climax where Connie's past and present meet head-on. Katherine Howe is a direct decendent of Elizabeth Howe (who was accused of witchcraft during the Salem Trials) and most of the historical characters referenced in this novel actually existed. A smart, literay novel that brings the era Arthur Miller covered in "The Crucible" to life with the modern world. A quick and eerie read!