Conceived on May Morning, Nell is claimed by the piskies and faeries as a merrybegot, one of their own. She is a wild child: herb gatherer and healer, spell-weaver and midwife...and, some say, a witch.

Grace is everything Nell is not. She is the Puritan minister's daughter: beautiful and refined, innocent and sweet-natured...to those who think they know her. But she is hiding a secret -- a secret that will bring everlasting shame to her family should it ever come to light.

A merrybegot and a minister's daughter -- two girls who could not have less in common. Yet their fates collide when Grace and her younger sister, Patience, are suddenly spitting pins, struck with fits, and speaking in fevered tongues. The minister is convinced his daughters are the victims of witchcraft. And all signs point to Nell as the source of the trouble....

Set during the tumultuous era of the English Civil War, The Minister's Daughter is a spellbinding page-turner -- stunning historical fiction that captures the superstition, passion, madness, and magic of a vanished age.

Minister's Daughter

ANNOTATION

In 1645 in England, the daughters of the town minister successfully accuse a local healer and her granddaughter of witchcraft to conceal an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, but years later during the 1692 Salem trials their lie has unexpected repercussions.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Powers of the air, be here now. So mote it be."

Conceived on May Morning, Nell is claimed by the piskies and faeries as a merrybegot, one of their own. She is a wild child: herb gatherer and healer, spell-weaver and midwife...and, some say, a witch.

Grace is everything Nell is not. She is the Puritan minister's daughter: beautiful and refined, innocent and sweet-natured...to those who think they know her. But she is hiding a secret — a secret that will bring everlasting shame to her family should it ever come to light.

A merrybegot and a minister's daughter — two girls who could not have less in common. Yet their fates collide when Grace and her younger sister, Patience, are suddenly spitting pins, struck with fits, and speaking in fevered tongues. The minister is convinced his daughters are the victims of witchcraft. And all signs point to Nell as the source of the trouble....

Set during the tumultuous era of the English Civil War, The Minister's Daughter is a spellbinding page-turner — stunning historical fiction that captures the superstition, passion, madness, and magic of a vanished age.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

British author Hearn makes a memorable American debut with this tightly woven tale of a witch hunt. She pits 15-year-old Grace, the daughter of a hypocritical Puritan minister, against Nell, the granddaughter of a midwife and healer who has taken Nell as her apprentice. The novel alternates between the dangerous times of the English Civil War during April 1645-January 1646, and the confessions of Patience Madden, the minister's "simple" daughter, from the New World in 1692. Patience reveals how she colluded to throw fits in order to conceal Grace's pregnancy and to damn Nell as a witch. Hearn effectively contrasts the sanctimonious minister and the creepy town "Watchers" ("women who like nothing better than a good hanging") with the magical, impish piskies and fairies that populate the countryside plus the knowledge of herbs and spells (offered with a liberal dose of humor) passed down to Nell. Hearn places actual historical figures (including Matthew Hopkins, "Witch-finder General") among her stellar cast and, through Nell's scenes, reveals prevailing attitudes toward religion: "The little church is full.... There are those who truly believe; some who are trying to; and a few who never will, but need to pretend, for the look of it." Those in the know will not be surprised when Patience's recollections lead to the doorstep of the Salem witch trials, while others less knowledgeable may be inspired to find out more. With its thought-provoking perceptions about human nature, magic and persecution, this tale will surely cast a spell over readers. Ages 12-up. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature - Susie Wilde

The year 1645 finds England caught in changing spiritual beliefs. This book represents that shift, with characters that will grab and hold young adult readers. Nell is the "cunning woman's" granddaughter. All her life she has been learning about herbs and lore, piskies, fairies, and other little people, and how to birth babies. Now the dark cloak of senility is falling down over her grandmother's eyes. She owes much to this woman who took her in and raised her, even though she was "merrybegot" (a child born out of wedlock, revered by those who believe in folk wisdom). Another merrybegot has been conceived in the story. This is the unwanted child of Grace, the unmarried daughter of the severe Puritan minister. Grace knows there is only one way out of this predicament, to accuse Nell of witchcraft and claim her unborn child the devil's spawn. Patience, Grace's innocent and unbecoming sister, is unwittingly roped into the delusion and so are the suspicious townsfolk. The book is structured so that narratives by Patience and Nell are told from a third person point-of-view in present tense. Patience's apologetic introspectives from 1692 are interspersed in first person past tense from the vantage point of the Salem witch trials. The book is a graceful, believable blend of differing perspectives, folklore, and history, and the conflict that comes when there's a tremendous shift in belief. 2005, Atheneum, Ages 12 up.

VOYA - Angelina Benedetti

Grace and Patience Madden are the daughters of a Puritan minister in an English west country village in 1645. Nell is the granddaughter of the village's cunning woman, a girl conceived in magic and marked by the piskies as one of their own. Conflict among the three is inevitable and erupts when Nell refuses to aid Grace in hiding the evidence of her indiscretion with the blacksmith's son. Multiple points of view (including a "confession" by a much older Patience) and the mixing of magic and madness muddy this otherwise familiar witch-trial story. The tidy ending saves those who need saving and hints at punishment for the wrongdoers, connecting the events of 1645 England to 1692 Salem, Massachusetts. The gorgeous cover will draw readers to the book, and its occasional unexpected plot twists will keep them turning the pages, but ultimately the novel spends too much time in ambitious contrivances and not enough in character development (with the notable exception of Nell). Despite its flaws, the book is sure to be a popular late summer read. Buy it for its lovely package and for the promise of more from an author new to our shores. VOYA CODES: 3Q 5P J S (Readable without serious defects; Every YA (who reads) was dying to read it yesterday; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2005, Atheneum/S & S, 272p., Ages 12 to 18.

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up-In 1645, England is plunged into a Civil War pitting Puritans against Royalists, and is swept by a craze of witch-hunting, targeting women who practice healing arts drawn from ancient lore. Hearn intertwines the stories of three girls in one village. Two are daughters of the new minister, a man who fulminates against the old pagan ways, and Nell, who is the granddaughter of the local cunning woman. Because the elderly woman is failing in mind and body, Nell must quickly learn her skills and lore, including midwifery to humans and fairies. Meanwhile Grace, the minister's beautiful elder daughter, pregnant by a lad who runs away to be a soldier, draws her sister Patience into a conspiracy to blame her condition on witchcraft practiced by Nell and her grandmother. Caught up in Grace's hysteria, the villagers dunk the old woman in a pond and condemn Nell to hang. Chapters set in 1645 are written in third-person, present tense, and alternate with adult Patience's first-person, past tense, which readers later learn is her testimony during the Salem, MA, witch trials of 1692. These varied perspectives allow readers to penetrate lies and concealment. While piskies and fairies provide an element of fantasy that contributes to surprising plot twists, the novel is best described as entertaining historical fiction, paying tribute to wise, unconventional women whose skills come from an understanding of the natural world, not from supernatural powers. Engaging characters and a palpable sense of place combine with an accessible, clear style to make this a satisfying read.-Margaret A. Chang, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The year is 1645, and Nell, the village "cunning woman's" granddaughter, has been learning the healer's trade, desperately hoping to conceal her grandmother's increasing senility until she is able to take her place. At one margin of her world lurk the piskies and fairies that represent the old ways she follows; at the other, the forces of modernization in the forms of the Puritan minister and the English Civil War. The spikily independent Nell's conscientiousness brings her into contact and conflict with the minister's daughters: Grace, unmarried and pregnant, and Patience, her simple sister, whose imperfect apprehension of the tensions swirling around her form an eerie counter narrative, taken down during the 1692 witch panic of Salem Village. Hearn develops each character with exquisite care, the month-by-month narration ratcheting up the tension as Grace's belly swells and the minister casts about for scapegoats. Even though Patience's retrospective account, appearing as it does in the chapter breaks, lends an air of dreary inevitability, the old Powers have a way of enforcing their own rules. The result is twinned endings, one eminently satisfying, the other satisfyingly unsettling. Tremendous. (Fiction. YA)