The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’m from New England and I majored in history, so this book seemed right up my alley. My worry with these type of ‘Mystery of History’ books is that ever since The Da Vinci Code hit it really big, a slew of books, some good, some not so good, dealing with long forgotten tomes and mysterious past occurrences have been published (Codex, The Geographer’s Library, The Rule of Four, etc.). I am glad to see these books getting published, as the best-written ones can be very exciting without a submarine or secret decoder ring in sight. Plus I’m a sucker for historical details.
That said, ‘Deliverance Dane’ is OK. It moves a little slow at first, with a little too much description of minor, or unneeded, details. The life of a grad student, I would think, makes for a bit of a dull novel, but understanding some of the academia detailed, I was able to stay with the story. The narration was good, although some of the narrator’s New England accents were a little distracting, but so are New England accents if you didn’t grow up with them, or at least live with them for a while.
The book was interspersed with ‘Interludes’, that flash back to the Salem Witch trials and the toils of the title character and her offspring. I always liked this storytelling device because it allows the author to sneak in some suspense by leaving off the main narrative and freshens things up some. I liked them in this book.
Spoiler coming.
It’s when the book reaches part two that I found it a little more interesting, but I recognize that some readers may not be able to handle the break with the first part. I didn’t think part one did enough to build up the possibility of magic being real for the reader so that when suddenly — Magic! — pops up, that the casual reader wouldn’t just say “What the heck?” and put the book down.
I liked the characters well enough, although when the villain was finally revealed (you kind of know who it will be all along, so waiting to see what Connie, the main character does, is the real suspense), the villain’s villainy didn’t seem all that villainous. But, again, there were no submarines, no tanks, no spycraft.
What I thought was really cool was the author’s postscript, where she talks in more depth about the Salem Witch Trials and brings up the point, as does one of the characters, that the people in 17th century New England believed that witchcraft was being practiced and it was real, as real to them as car theft or murder or reckless driving is to you and me. And she asked herself the question, what if the New Englanders were 100 percent right? What if people were not only practicing witchcraft, but some people actually had the hang of it? And that idea alone made this worth a read (or a listen, in my case).
If you liked: the aforementioned Codex, The Geographer’s Library, The Rule of Four or perhaps The Historian, you might give this a try.
What a book! 