Description

An oppressive, forensic, psychological thriller: J.K. Rowling meets Antony Beevor, Stephen King and Marina Warner … Schiff s writing is to die for THE TIMES

It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister s niece started to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before panic had infected the entire colony, nineteen men and women had been hanged, and a band of adolescent girls had brought Massachusetts to its knees.

Vividly capturing the dark, unsettled atmosphere of seventeenth-century America, Stacy Schiff s magisterial history draws us into this anxious time. She shows us how quickly the epidemic of accusations, trials, and executions span out of control. Above all, Schiff s astonishing research reveals details and complexity that few other historians have seen.