The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
***A spellbinding, beautifully* written novel that moves between contemporary times and one of the most fascinating and disturbing periods in American history--the Salem witch trials.** Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie's grandmother's abandoned home near Salem, she can't refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest--to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge. As the pieces of Deliverance's harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem's dark past then she could have ever imagined. Written with astonishing conviction and grace, *The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane* travels seamlessly between the witch
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Harvard PhD candidate Connie Goodwin is sent by her mother to clear out her grandmother's empty Marblehead house and finds a slip of paper hidden inside an old Bible naming Deliverance Dane, a Salem witch trial defendant. The novel braids her search with chapters set in 1692 Massachusetts.
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane was written by Katherine Howe and published in 2009. Howe is a descendant of Salem witch trial victims and used family research as inspiration.
Yes. Katherine Howe wrote The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs (2019), a follow-up set decades after the original. Both can be read as standalones.
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is 384 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.