DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL by Frances Hill, 2011.
Frances Hill, a noted historian on the Salem witch trials here turns her hand to fiction. Although most people know the basics of the story, Hill gets it started a bit differently, beginning with an Indian attack in the outback of Maine, where the living is a bit more easy, especially as concerns religion, drawing in less hardnosed Puritans, Quakers, and even Baptists. The Harvard-educated Reverend George Burroughs, a former resident of Salem Village and who left it under a cloud, rescues young Mary Cheever during the Indian attack on York, and they are later married and live happily in Wells with Burroughs' houseful of children.

Meanwhile, in Salem Village, young girls playing at fortune telling get into serious trouble and become pawns and actors in a deadly plan by Thomas Putnam, who has many scores to settle. As Hill heats up the narrative and reveals the story in its logical pattern, the community she describes becomes a place of terror. When the group of afflicted girls becomes larger and more people are cried out upon, no one is safe. Even George Burroughs is accused and arrested, and when he is transported from Maine to Salem jail, Mary is determined to find a way to save him. Along with Peter White, an old friend of George's, Mary travels to Salem to plead for her husband's life; they both quickly discover firsthand the horrors that exist in Salem and just how unprepared they are to fight the hysterical forces that threaten to overwhelm them.

Hill, whose nonfiction account (A Delusion of Satan) of this well known chapter in American history is excellently researched and written, does a fine job with providing the period details and necessary background of New England during 1692. I like her taking the stance that Thomas Putnam took control of the situation to promote his own agenda, supplying the girls with the names of those he held grudges against and encouraging them to accuse them. It added dimension to the story and made it more real. Once she keeps the story focussed on the Burroughs, an urgency takes hold that made me keep turning pages even though I knew how things would turn out. Her descriptions of neighbors and friends betraying each other in order to save themselves, of farms and buildings gone untended, of cold and harsh judges, of children left without parents or homes, of awful jail conditions, all ring true and can be favorably compared to what Kathleen Kent depicted in her novel The Heretic's Daughter, as well. Her portraits of George Burroughs, Mary, Peter White, Nathaniel Cary, Margaret Jacobs, and several others are sympathetic and appealing. Mary's whole mission to save her husband is quite heartrending, and I thought Hill was clever in having Mary ask the questions that modern audiences often ask when reading about these cases: How can they believe this? Why is it that the witch didn't have to touch them that time to make them stop when she did before? Can't anyone see that they are play-acting? and suchlike. Her depiction of the judges and especially of their willingness to believe in "spectral evidence" during the trials was downright chilling and made my skin crawl. I wasn't thrilled with several of her pieces of fictional license: for example, her description of Bridget Bishop goes totally against what is known about her; Deliverance, not Lydia, Hobbs was the name of the accused person who implicated Burroughs; Abigail Williams didn't hang herself, she was present throughout the entire period. These changes seem unnecessary or purposeless, and to those very familiar with the story rather jarring. It was a nice touch to include a bibliography, although it seems a little self-serving that four of the nine titles listed were written by the author. But all quibbles aside, on the whole I found this a very readable and engaging novel about this shocking and terrible time in New England's history. It made me want to visit Salem again!

THE WOLVES OF ANDOVER by Kathleen Kent, 2010.
Kent's first book, The Heretic's Daughter, was a much better read for me than this one. Here she relates the backstory of Thomas Carrier (aka Morgan) and Martha Allen, both of whom were major characters in the previous novel. Set during 1673, Thomas is indentured to a farmer cousin of Martha's near Billerica, Massachusetts. Martha meets Thomas and comes to know and love him while she is attending her cousin Patience's difficult pregnancy. Unknown to Martha (and most of the others) for most of the book, is that Thomas is a regicide, that he in fact wielded the axe that decapitated King Charles I in 1649 under Cromwell's orders. Along with other participants in the execution, Thomas escaped to Puritan New England and has been living there under a different name and has been protected from those who seek to avenge the dead king. However, King Charles II, bent on rounding up those who murdered his father, has sent more assassins after the regicides, and once Martha learns Thomas' secret, she realizes that she and all those near Thomas are also in danger. Part mystery, part romance, and part thriller, Kent does an excellent job with historical details, showing the dirt and filth, the political turbulence and violence, everyday customs, hunting, threshing fields, fashions, foods, and hard life during the seventeenth century. As interested as I was to know more about Thomas and Martha and their story, I found this rather tough going--just not as compelling as their lives during the high drama of the Salem witch hysteria. Simply a personal preference, in reading this it felt like something was lacking in this effort. Not a bad read, just not as good as it should have been.

THE TUDOR SECRET by C.W. Gortner, 2011.
It's the summer of 1553, and young King Edward VI lies seriously ill in London. Brendan Prescott, an orphan without a past raised by the Dudley family, is sent to serve Lord Robert Dudley at court, and is immediately plunged into a world of politics, danger, and deceit. Within no time at all, he is forced to work as a double agent for William Cecil, a master manipulator whose main concern, along with the dark visaged Walsingham, is for Elizabeth Tudor's welfare. Plenty of villainous nobles, a headstrong lady in waiting, a helpful stableboy, ruthless royals, and enough dark plots and secrets for several books, keep the story moving at breakneck speed. Brendan becomes enmeshed in the attempt to disinherit the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth and place Lady Jane Grey on the English throne, and during his involvement discovers the answers to some questions he has concerning his own troubled past. Gortner weaves his various threads of the plot together very well and provides enough background and details of Tudor England to add depth and interest. He's good with his characters, although at times his villains seem almost too villainous to be credible, but the whole thing is a fun, fast moving adventure with lots of twists and turns and suspense and violence and a bit of romance for good measure thrown into the mix. The end result for this reader: good writing, interesting characters, an appealing hero, and a strong story that kept me wanting to turn the next page. I also appreciated the author's afterword and bibliography. A very enjoyable outing overall; I liked the character of Brendan and hope that as this is the beginning of a series (Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles) that he will have many more adventures. If you enjoyed the Ursula Blanchard series by Fiona Buckley or Karen Harper's Elizabeth I mysteries, this novel should appeal.

I STILL DREAM ABOUT YOU by Fannie Flagg, 2010.
Fannie Flagg is a novelist who really knows how to write good stories. While this one is not as good as some of her previous books, her sense of humor is still present, her characters shine in all their wonderful quirkiness, and the story (part mystery, part drama, part comedy) is involving and appealing. Set mainly in contemporary Birmingham, Alabama, with some flashbacks, Flagg's story concerns former Miss Alabama Margaret Fortenberry--Maggie, lovely and charming and the most successful agent of her realty company, feels she somehow has lost her way in life, and missed out on her dreams. Her dreams of having a wonderful husband and children, living in one of the elegant old houses on the mountain, and having a great life. And since her business partner Hazel died, business has gone from bad to worse and so has Maggie's life in general. To everyone else, Maggie's life seems almost perfect, but Maggie has regrets and secrets and decides to end it all, and she comes up with a great plan how to do it. But each time she tries to carry out her plan, circumstances occur to make her put it off, again and again. Flagg's sense of humor and her wiseness are present in this story and she moves things along at a good pace. Her cast is fun and odd, as is her usual--the overweight Brenda, who is Maggie's best friend and real estate partner, the ancient and funny purple-haired Ethel Clipp, who runs their office, the mysterious Edward Crocker, who owned the fabulous mansion that Maggie has always dreamed of living in, all add color and humor. This is a pure pleasure to read, even if it's not her best work. Fannie Flagg is still one of my favorite Southern authors writing today, and I'd recommend any of her books to someone who enjoys Southern humor and quirkiness.

ANCESTOR by Scott Sigler, 2010.
A hugely entertaining science fiction adventure/horror/thriller, with plenty of humor, violence, gore, nasty villains, heroes, mad scientists, murder, mayhem, and horrifying creatures. A corporation run by brothers Dante and Magnus Paglione (Magnus, by the way, is psychotic with a penchant for torture and mutilation) is funding a venture to create an animal whose organs would be compatible with human organs and could be harvested for transplants, saving thousands of lives and making the brothers and their investors immensely rich. By reverse-engineering, their top-notch scientific team creates an animal they call the "ancestor", based on the genes of an ancient mammal that existed eons ago and was a common ancestor of all present day mammals. P.J. Colding, the story's hero and the team leader, and his team are endangered due to ethical and biohazard issues and there governments are out to find the lab and put a stop to their experiments.With success very close, the movable lab is transported by Sara Puriname and her crew by aircraft and placed on a lonely island in Lake Superior. Dr. Rhumkorff, the head geneticist, Tim Feely, and others place viable embryos of their creation into cows, and the embryos grow quickly, too quickly, gaining weight up to a hundred pounds in several days. Meanwhile, time is running out: blizzards hit, agents from the United States are closing in, and the evil Magnus Paglione has his own bizarre agenda concerning the experiments and its participants.Too late, when the cows begin birthing the babies (who actually eat and claw their way out of the cows' bellies), the group realizes they have unleashed powerful, evil, and hungry monsters that live to hunt, kill, and literally devour their victims completely, and from that point, the whole story becomes one of survival. Fast paced, page turning, nail-biting terror and suspense, this one practically kept me up all night. Yes, at times it read like a movie screenplay, but I didn't care. Anyone who has enjoyed the novels of Michael Crichton and/or Robin Cook would probably like this.

THE FAR REACHES by Homer Hickam, 2007.
I picked this up, drawn by the cover, read the flap and was intrigued. I'd certainly heard of Hickam before, but had never read any of his books, and World War II is not a period I'm that fond of. I'm glad I picked it up. Turns out that this title is actually the third book in the "Josh Thurlow Series", but the fact that I hadn't read the previous books did not make any difference in my enjoyment of this story. Hickam opens this entry with the horrific battle at Tarawa in 1943, and introduces the reader to the heroic Captain Josh Thurlow of Killakeet, North Carolina, his buddy Ready O'Neal, and the young Irish nun Sister Mary Kathleen Ryan, and others, amid scenes of blood and gore, horrendous violence and death, bodies floating or piled high on the beaches, blood in the water, men jumping out of barges only to be killed instantly by unending hails of bullets and so on. Reading this definitely gives a sense of war being total hell. Josh, predicting the outcome of the battle, joins in, and becomes involved with the Sister's attempt to escape. Afterward, Josh's nemesis, Colonel Montague Burr, lets Sister and her native "fella boys" take the unconscious Josh, Ready, and several other marines to the Forridge Islands ( the Far Reaches). The Sister, who has painful and horrible secrets of her own, wants help to carry out her own nearly impossible plan for getting the Japanese out of the islands. Colorful, action packed, some romance thrown in, full of adventure and lively characters and dialogue, it was a grand read. Entertaining, educational, and at times thrilling. Great storytelling and a good change-of-pace read for me.

CATHERINE OF ARAGON: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII by Giles Tremlett, 2010.
Tremlett, the Madrid correspondent for the Guardian, has written an excellent biography of Henry VIII's first wife. Utilizing rich, and in some instances, previously unavailable sources in the Spanish Archives, he presents his findings in a well written narrative that even readers familiar with her story will enjoy and learn from. He devotes a good amount of space to Catherine's childhood and education; as the daughter of the great Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon who were essentially trying to unite their kingdoms and drive out the Moors, Catherine and her siblings continually moved along with the court as it constantly traversed the kingdoms, never staying in one place for long. Even so, Catherine evidently had a peaceful and happy childhood for the most part. Betrothed to Prince Arthur of England at a very young age, she was raised as a future Queen of England. He describes her somewhat harrowing journey to England to marry and follows events in a logical fashion: the death of Arthur, her limbo between widowhood and her marriage to Henry, the miscarriages, the birth of Mary, the advent of Anne Boleyn and the King's Great Matter, the beginnings of the Reformation, etc. etc., all told in a straightforward, readable narrative. Sympathetic to Catherine, he also points out that she was not a flawless character, but had her faults, mostly in her stubbornness and inflexibility. Although Garrett Mattingly's biography, Catherine of Aragon, is still considered the definitive work on Catherine, this nicely done biography should stand next to it on the shelf.