A new twist on an old history

In 1692, cunning woman Deliverance Dane was one of the victims of the Salem Witch Hunts, accused for the death of a young girl by her father. Years after Deliverance's death by hanging, her daughter Mercy attempts to clear Livvy's name, something which had been granted to the other condemned men and women. However, the presiding judge states that Deliverance was not and cannot be cleared as she actually was guilty of witchcraft.

Flash forward to 1991: Connie Goodwin is about to embark on the final stages of her graduate studies at Harvard. However, first she must deal with her deceased grandmother's old, decrepit house. Connie, for years submerged in academia, get distracted her discoveries in the house, including the mystery of an old key in a Bible, wrapped in a delicate paper with the name Deliverance Dane written on it. She uses her research skills to track down Dane's story, at the encouragement of her advisor, Manning Chilton, who may have alterior motives. During her investigation, Connie ends up not only learning about Deliverance's story, but her own.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is Katherine Howe's first fiction release, and mirrors aspects of the author's life: both have ancestors involved with the Salem Witch trials, both are dog lovers, both were/are graduate students at Harvard. But Howe's writing style is not bogged down in multisyllabic, academic, incomprehensible language. Rather, it is an intelligent but fluid text, its imagery often sublimely beautiful (Connie "was always puzzled that people say that darkness falls. To her it seemed instead to rise, massing under trees and shrubs, pouring out from under furniture, only reaching the sky when the spaces near the ground were full"). Howe successfully portrays Massachusetts in time periods separated by three centuries, with empathy, pathos, and humour (my favourite scenes being the comical portrayal of strict librarians, and of someone's shouting entering Connie's sleeping subconscious in Sans Serif script, not to mention Connie's new age mother). Without giving anything away, the unconventional ending may throw some readers off, but I found it to be a different, and who knows, perhaps plausible conclusion. And I look forward to more of Howe's work.

Fiction that goes beyond its target

As a teen, I devoured the classics, such as A Tale of Two Cities, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Phantom of the Opera, Wuthering Heights, and practically all of Agatha Christie's mysteries. I wasn't into 'teen' fiction.

Looking back, I'm not sure if this was due to a lack of books that caught my interest, or a lack of Young Adult authors at the time. During university, I found myself turning to YA fiction as a break from academia, because of my notion that it was fluffy, therefore easier and lighter to read than 'adult' fiction; it wouldn't distract me from my studies through its plots or writing styles (no more "just one more chapter"!).

During this time, I came across multiple YA titles that challenged and changed my thinking, and rank them to be 'as good' as those classics I once voraciously read.

O.R. Melling's The Chronicles of Faerie
A series of four books taking place in Canada and Ireland, of crossings between the worlds of faerie and humans.

An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle
During a summer spent with her maternal grandparents in Conneticut, Polly O'Keefe and her friend Zachary Grey become involved with ancient hieroglyphs which attract druids who lived some three thousand years ealier.

The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Yes, a romantic story with a happy ending, but a bit of a different path getting there. 'Old maid' Valancy Stirling is diagnosed with a heart defect, and decides that it's time to get out of her mother's house. She proposes to local bachelor Barney Snaith, saying she will die soon, and just wants to live out her remaining days in peace and quiet. But of course, something changes, because it wouldn't be a happy ending if we left it there, would it?

Laura Whitcomb's A Certain Slant of Light
Helen Lamb spends her days with Mr. Brown, an English teacher in a public high school, and her nights in his house, with him and Mrs. Brown. But they don't know it, as Helen has been dead and lost for 130 years. One day, she gets a jolt as she sees one of the students watching her. When he speaks to her, he explains that he, too, is one of 'the Light' inhabiting the body of a lost boy. After finding her own host body, Helen and James start a most unusual and intense love affair, as they adjust to their new lives without their hosts' memories.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
In 1895, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely and guilt-ridden after her mother's suicide, Gemma is prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man sent to watch her and warn Gemma and her friends about using their powers to enter spiritual realms.

A modern Gothic delight

I love overly romanticised, dark, sinister stories. These include Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, "Dragonwyck by Anya Seton, Louise May Alcott's A Long and Fatal Love Chase, anything by Mary Stewart and Barbara Michaels, and my frequently re-read favourites, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I would now add a new title to the list: Sleep, Pale Sister.

Sleep, Pale Sister was originally published in 1993 by Joanne Harris, and reissued in 2004. One of its main characters is painter Henry Chester, whose works are influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and whose reputation is growing. His subjects are mainly young girls in scenes from Shakespeare or classic tragedies, and feature his favourite model, pale, unearthly Effie. When Effie turns seventeen, Henry, twenty years her senior, marries her. However, his vision of Effie as pure and untouched changes when she welcomes his sexual advances early in the marriage, and disgust and hate replace love and adoration. Henry vows to destroy Effie.

But Henry is not the only one plotting; Moses Harper is not only a rival to Henry in painting, but for Effie's attention. With information and help from Fanny, a brothel owner who has her own vendetta against Henry, Effie and Mose join together to ruin him.

This novel is full of what you would expect in Gothic fiction: a mad wife, a secretive husband, drugs and liquor galore, not to mention prostitutes, nightmares, large spooky houses, and the inevitable graveyard and ghost. Harris uses the device of a different character's point of view for each chapter, which adds to the book's almost frenetic pace and tumultuousness. It's a wild and bumpy ride, perfect reading for dark, chilly, windy nights.