Calligraphy of the witch - ISBNLookup.com

Publishers Weekly

A spirited indentured servant gets tangled up in the 17th-century Massachusetts Bay Colony witch hunts in this ambitious historical drama. Halfway through her 15-year indenture at a Mexico City convent, Concepción Benavidez escapes only to be captured by pirates and taken to Boston, where she's sold into slavery. Nathaniel Greenwood, a local merchant, is impressed that the "papist slave" can write and purchases her to help his disabled father-in-law manage his chicken farm. Renamed Thankful Seagraves, Concepción, who was repeatedly raped by the pirate captain, soon discovers that she's pregnant. Greenwood's barren wife, Rebecca, covets Concepción's newborn daughter, Hanna, and sets out to take her away. As their struggle over the girl unfolds, witch hysteria grips the colony, and Concepción is drawn into the fray when Hanna fingers her for a witch. De Alba's recreation is undercut by thin characterizations-the men are mostly cruel and the women victims, the notable exception being Concepción, who clings to her dignity under the most trying conditions. But De Alba (Sor Juana's Second Dream) has a firm grasp of her historical material and portrays the pirate life as convincingly as the witch trials. Readers interested in the period will want to give this a look. (Oct.)

Kirkus Reviews

Widely disparate strands of New World history converge in this fiction from de Alba (Desert Blood, 2005, etc.) about a young Mexican woman who surmounts one cruelty after another only to find herself accused of witchcraft in 17th-century Boston. Concepci-n is born in Mexico to a mixed-race mother and highborn Spanish father. After escaping the monastery where she's learned fine penmanship as an indentured servant, Concepci-n is captured by pirates headed to New England. The pirate captain rapes her repeatedly before selling her as a slave to Boston merchant Nathaniel Greenwood, who renames her Thankful Seagraves. He wants Concepci-n to run his aging father-in-law Tobias's chicken farm. Greenwood's wife Rebecca quickly realizes Concepci-n is pregnant. Rebecca, who exhibits both selfishness and the capacity for love, successfully nurses Concepci-n through her difficult pregnancy because she wants Concepci-n's child for herself. Concepci-n names her new baby Jer-nima but Rebecca calls her Hanna and the name sticks. When Tobias, gruff but learned and not unkind, marries Concepci-n, she becomes a free woman. While her life grows relatively easy, she finds herself in a losing battle for her daughter's affection. Hanna refuses to learn Spanish, is as hostile to Concepci-n's Catholicism as any good little Puritan and calls Rebecca "Mama Becca" from an early age. Eventually Hanna chooses to live most of the week with Rebecca's family. When the witch scare erupts, Concepci-n is accused and imprisoned. Tobias supports her, but Hanna gladly testifies against her. Although Concepci-n survives the witch trials until they peter out, Hanna has broken her heart. She knows she has no future in Boston. Withmoney left her by the now-deceased Tobias, she boards a ship to the West Indies disguised as a man. Years later, Hanna reads the letters Concepci-n left behind and learns her history. The heroic, victimized Concepci-n feels engineered, but de Alba's Puritans are as rich and complex as any characters in recent historical fiction.