The Heretic’s Daughter, by Kathleen Kent
Published September 3, 2008 (Little, Brown, and Company)
Thanks to Miriam at Little, Brown and Company, I received a beautiful first edition, hard cover copy of this stunning debut novel to give away to one lucky winner here on my blog. This is an amazing historical novel which I loved (read my review). Readers can read more about the author and novel at the website designed for this book.
The book give away is open only to US and Canada mailing addresses. To enter the drawing, leave me a comment with one historical fact about the Salem witch trials OR the author or author’s family which you learned by visiting the author’s website.
In honor of Book Blogger’ Appreciation Week, I will be drawing one lucky winner on September 17th (one week from today!). Comments close for this giveaway at 5:00pm PCT on September 17th.
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= Ugh! Don't waste your time.
Kathleen Kent is a tenth generation descendant of Martha Carrier. Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts.
Contrary to popular belief, none of the accused “witches” were burned at the stake in Salem — they were hanged.
Oops!! Didn’t read carefully enough.
The author is currently re-reading a book called The Long Home by William Gay.
Hi! I, too was “reminded” by the author’s website that no witches were burned at the stake in Salem. I’d love to read this book, on your recommendation. Enter me in the contest, please!
The fear of witches and ensuing trials only last for about a year, from January 1692 to May of 1693.
I’m fascinated with this time period and can’t wait to read this book.
One thing I learned: if the accused pled guilty, they were imprisoned. If they pled innocent, they were executed (mostly by hanging). Wow. What a choice.
The authors mission:
Kathleen Kent grew up listening to stories about her ancestor Martha Carrier, stories that had been passed down through the generations in her mother’s family. After she became a mother herself, she decided to learn more about the life that had come so long before hers, and spent five years researching the Salem witch trials and writing The Heretic’s Daughter.
Wow! I didn’t know that the accused came from other villages besides Salem. And I didn’t know both women and men were hanged…and one pressed! How gory! Thanks for the contest.
Twenty people were executed in New England’s witchcraft panic–including two men.
The author is a tenth generation of the family plagued by the Witch Trials and some of her favotie books areThe Quincunx, by Charles Palliser, Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve, and The Source by James Michener.
angelleslament@gmail.com
I didn’t realize ‘only’ 19 men and women were hanged for being witches. I actually thought there were more. I also it didn’t really register with me that men were actually accused of involvement in witchcraft. I’m really looking forward to reading this whether I win or not!
I knew that women were hanged, but I didn’t know about the men that were hanged, or the one man who was pressed. It sounds hideous.
Giles Corey was pressed to death (his chest was piled with rocks until he couldn’t breathe).
Not on the author’s website: He was pressed to death because they were trying to extract a confession from him, which he refused to give, presumably because if he confessed, his family would be stripped of their land. He died, of course, (I think he was 86) but his sons did inherit his property–quite a bit of good acreage.
Hey, CM! I’m just dropping in to say I’ve got this posted at Win a Book. As for a fact… if a woman is lighter than a duck, she’s a witch.
Yes, I owe that to Monty Python (and The Tour Manager, who is better with these things than I am)
I don’t know HOW related to the Salem Witch trials this is, but I always thought it was funny that dissident people were exiled to Rhode Island. A great book about this time period, including the Antinomian Controversy and Anne Hutchinson, is Governing the Tongue by Jane Kazmensky. Non-fiction, but fascinating. Thanks for the giveaway, Wendy.
Martha Carrier’s husband was over 7 ft. tall and lived to be 109!
Just because an entire society believed the words of three young girls, many people lost their lives under a false statements. It was the testimony of these young women which was accepted and written into the court transcripts; the original documents held for posterity in such institutions as the Peabody Essex Museum in Boston. ((“Now that would be something to see. I wonder if the documents are actually somewhere viewable.”))
“Life is not what you have or what you can keep. It is what you can bear to lose.” -The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent
And one more from a website featuring the author … The Carriers, who lived in the nearby town of Andover, make all-too-easy targets. They’re suspected of bringing smallpox to the town, and during the novel’s early pages Martha has several disputes with neighbors, mainly over untended livestock grazing onto the Carrier farm.
I’m not sure I saw anyone with the name Carrier listed on the benches in Salem placed as a memorial to those who lost their lives in this “witch hunt”.
I SO want to win this one!! FACT: No “witch” in Salem was ever burned at the stake!
During the Salem witch trials of 1692, 19 men and women were hanged, and one man was pressed to death with stones because he would not testify to either his guilt or his innocence.
This sounds wonderful! I’d love to be entered:
Many of the accused, to save themselves from death, pled guilty to consorting with the Devil and so were only imprisoned. The men and women who held fast to their innocence were all condemned to be hanged.
Most of the books that have influenced and touched Kathleen the most are historical fiction. When she was a child she read a lot of Dickens, Poe and H.H. Monroe.
Duh! I forgot to leave you a fact about the witch trials.
The Witch Cake Test
A “witch cake”, made from rye meal and urine from the afflicted girls was incorporated with traditional English white magic to discover the identity of a witch.
There were no graves for most of the executed witches–they were thrown into open pits and buried together.
She lives in dallas, which is where our family largely originates from. She also spent 5 years researching and writing this novel, not continuously I hope.
Thanks for the chance, this book looks awesome!
Kathleen Kent talks about hearing tales about the Carrier family as a child. She describes how “the children made bows and arrows and practiced shooting objects off each other’s heads. Their cow was fed pumpkins so she would give golden milk. Martha’s husband Thomas was, according to local gossip, a soldier for Cromwell and the executioner of King Charles I of England. Thomas was over seven feet tall and, when he died at 109, two coffins had to be fitted together to bury him.” I would think that hearing these stories growing up would peak her interest into reading more about her family and the salem witch trials.
“Many of the accused, to save themselves from death, pled guilty to consorting with the Devil and so were only imprisoned. The men and women who held fast to their innocence were all condemned to be hanged.” (http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/features/hereticsdaughter/history.htm)
Great contest!
With a few exceptions, such as the grave memorial of Rebecca Nurse, there are no known grave sites for most of the executed witches.
I just learned that Rebecca Nurse is one of the only condemned witches with a marked grave. How sad.
This book sounds incredible!
I love how the book is to be a blend of fiction with Kent’s own family history and legend. How cool is that?!
Would love to win a copy of this as I don’t have the money to buy it with, but either way this is going on my TBR.
Thanks for the chance to put my name in the hat.
RebekahC
littleminx at cox dot net
A Salem Witch Trial fact: Sarah Osborne, one of the first three accused, died in jail on May 10, 1692.
Please enter me in the contest. Cheers!
This looks like a fascinating read. I never knew that a man was pressed to death by stones for refusing to testify his guilt or innocence.
The court relied on “Spectral Evidence” seen only by the accusers.
It’s an amazing history that’s missed in most history textbooks today. I saw this book in the library a couple of weeks ago and was intrigued. I’d love to win a copy!
hey..do enter me for the giveaway.. thanks for the link.. i was surprised to learn that none of the witches were actually burned at salem.. i always thought that was what had happened.. it is surprising to know that they were actually hanged.. kinda takes the drama out of it now..don’t you agree??
With the exception of Rebecca Nurse, there are few known grave sites of the accused.
I was last in Salem, MA in 1992, the 300th commemoration of the Witch Trials. It was fall and the atmosphere was palpative.
I actually did a dissertation paper on the Salem Witch Trials for college. My facination with the Witch Trials started when I was a youngster in grade school, when I first read the book “The Witch of Blackbird Pond.”
I very much like to read historical fiction and would be excited to win this book.
Hello, What a magnificent book giveaway drawing. The author, Kathleen Kent, is a tenth-generation descendant of Martha Carrier. Please enter me in your drawing. Many thanks…..Cindi
From the author’s website: Martha Carrier was hung in 1692.
This books looks awesome! And right up my alley: I love historical fiction.
Thanks for hosting it!
I learned – to my great surprise – that the author’s grandfather, Miriam’s husband, was King Charles I’s executioner…. What a way to be remembered…
There is speculation that the witch trials may have originated from hallucinations brought on by eating rye bread infected with a fungus.
This looks like a really great book!
I didn’t remember from my history classes that if an accused pled guilty, then they were not hanged, but imprisoned.
Would love to read (and win) a book that has interesting historical daily life tidbits in it like feeding a cow pumpkins to get golden milk and archery practice that involves aiming for targets on the kids’ heads. And then there are the witch trial….
Thanks for offering the book.
I learned that Judge Corwin, along with other Salem witch judges, signed the death warrant for Martha Carrier — who is an ancestor of the author.
I studied the Salem Witch Trials as part of my graduate studies, and I was surprised (back then) to learn that Salem witches were not burned at the stake, which is the common myth. As told on the Web site, the accused were hung with one excpetion – one man was executed by being pressed by stones.
Yick.
Thanks for hosting this giveaway. It sounds like a fascinating book!
Mary Perkins Bradbury is my 8th great grandaunt. She was tried and convicted of witchcraft in the trials; however, she was able to escape death. It seems likely that her rather influential family was able to bribe the jailers and keep her hidden until the hysteria had passed.
I knew ergot poisoning was a possible cause of the young girls’ accusations, but I didn’t know encephalitis was another possibility.
I didn’t know that the women who said they were innocent didn’t even have graves… just were thrown into pits. It doesn’t make sense to kill the ones who plead innocent and jail the ones who plead guilty! Not that any of that made sense…
Thanks for the giveaway!
With a few exceptions, such as the grave memorial of Rebecca Nurse, there are no known grave sites for most of the executed witches, as they were tossed into shallow open pits after being hanged.
The book sounds wonderful, I’d love to have it! I visited the Salem Witch House many times when I lived in Lynn, which borders Salem. But I’d forgotten that it was the house of Judge Jonathan Corwin, who investigated the claims of witchcraft in that town. It’s a wonderful place to visit and I’d love to go back someday.
I have dying to get my hands on this book. I read about it previously and was struck by the fact that the author’s ancestor was actually hung during the witch trials. Amazing.
What I found interesting is that Kathleen Kent is a tenth-generation descendant of Martha Carrier. So she is related to her! (That’s really cool.)