In The Heretic’s Daughter, Kathleen Kent tells the story of her ancestor Martha Carrier, one of the women convicted for witchcraft in Salem during the Salem witch trials of 1692-1693, through the eyes of Martha’s daughter Sarah. Over the course of a couple years, we see how events – starting with a breakout of small pox – can cause people to turn on one another, how resentments can grow, and how rumours can ruin the lives of people.

This was a slow-moving book, but that in no way took away from the power of the book. I had tears in my eyes at numerous points in the last three chapters of the book. It was raw, poignant and heartfelt. I can’t imagine having to live through what all those people had to go through, and even reading about it just about broke my heart. To imagine having your friends and neighbours, and in some cases your family, turn against you and allow you to be condemned to hang as a witch… it’s just so depressing.

But not everything about the book was depressing. It was wonderful to see the layers of the relationships between all the family members peeled away as the book progressed. How the book starts with Sarah resenting her parents, to respecting, loving and understanding them by the end; how we understood by the end why Sarah’s father was always so standoffish; how Sarah’s mother really counted on Sarah to do the right thing. Kent wrote about real family dynamics that made that part of the book so relatable for anyone, and I think that definitely made the book that much more powerful. Because, when Sarah’s mother tells Sarah that Sarah must tell the judges whatever they want to hear, even if it means telling them that her mother is a witch… it breaks your heart. Can you even imagine having to tell people that your mother is a witch during the witch trials?

Part of what made this book so heart-wrenching was the fact that it is not only based on real-life events, but also on real people, people who really got condemned and hanged because they were believed to be witches.

This was Kent’s debut novel, and I’m definitely looking forward to what she does next.