Marialyce 's Reviews > Hour of the Witch

With a bit of a slow start, I pushed through and found myself truly enjoying this book. With one strong courageous character, Mary Deerfield, we learn of the trials and hardship she experienced living with a tyrannical abusive husband. She's been hit, pushed, and even at one point had a thee prong fork (a sure talisman of the evil and the devil) pushed through her hand by Thomas, her husband.

Having endured enough Mary sues for divorce. Common enough these days but back in Boston of 1662, women were definitely required to take it all and keep your mouth closed. Thomas is diabolical enough to have all the excuses in the world for Mary's condition, not ever allowing anyone to see or even hear his explosive abuses. We, of course, realize that Mary's suit will go nowhere except to condemn her as perhaps a witch and a woman who needs to return to her husband.

Mary refuses to allow the abuse to continue for her lifetime so she enlists the help of another woman, an outcast, probably viewed as a witch, for so many people were, and forms a plan of escape. However, sadly, Thomas seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to Mary so her plan also seems doomed.

How or if Mary escapes a life of hell, keeps this book moving towards what the reader might think is inevitable but things do change and perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that Mary will be free.
Recommended to those who enjoy a book based in Puritan times and one that looks at the treatment of women as subservient to men and not their equals.