Susanna desperately wants to join the circle of girls who meet every week at the parsonage.
Drawn by forbidden fortune-telling, fourteen-year-old Susanna English only hopes the slave Tituba can read the tea leaves and promise her missing brother will return from sea. What she doesn't realize is that the girls are about to set off a torrent of false accusations leading to the imprisonment and execution of countless innocent people.
Instead of harmless diversions by the hearth, she discovers that spiteful parlor tricks have curdled into a deadly scheme to destroy village rivals. When ringleader Ann Putnam demands absolute secrecy, Susanna is trapped by a terrifying threat: stay silent, or see her own prominent parents accused.
Susanna faces a painful choice. Should she keep quiet and let the witch-hunt panic continue, or should she "break charity" with the group--and risk having her own family members named as witches?
Reader's guide included.
- Salem Witch Trials: Based on the true 1692 hysteria, where nineteen innocent colonists were hanged on Gallows Hill and elderly Giles Cory was pressed to death after refusing to enter a plea.
- Peer Pressure: Caught in a chilling web of adolescent malice, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams feign demoniac fits until their dangerous games spiral entirely beyond control.
- First Love: When Magistrate Hathorne issues arrest warrants for Susanna's family, his son Johnathan defies his own father to pledge his devotion and protect her.
- Secret Resistance: Sheltered by Joseph Putnam, who keeps his horses saddled day and night in the barn, Susanna aids the quiet network of townsfolk working to end the executions.
- Also by This Author: The Coffin Quilt, Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons and The Fifth of March.
