Susannah Morrow by Megan Chance

In July I wrote a blog about Megan Chance's novel, An Inconvenient Wife which I enjoyed and which lead me to purchase her novel Susannah Morrow. I finished it recently and it has stayed with me much as the former novel did. Susannah Morrow is set in Salem, where I once lived, during the notorious Salem Witch Trials. I had also recently written a blog about Katherine Howe's The Physik Book of Deliverance Dane which had a similar theme. The Physik Book of Deliverance Dane moved back and forth between the 17^th century and the present and included a romance that was downright silly and immaterial to the story. Susannah Morrow is firmly fixed in the 17^th Century and contains a romance that took my breath away.

Romance may in fact be the wrong word, this is the story of a passion that is both breathtaking and tragic. The story is fairly simple (most really good stories usually are). Susannah, an unmarried woman from London, travels to Salem, Massachusetts to be with her sister Judith who is married to Lucas and who is about to give birth to her third child. Her oldest daughter Charity is fifteen and has recently had an intense and forbidden romance of her own that did not end well. The story is told in alternating sections from the perspectives of Charity, Lucas, and Susannah. I'm fond of this style of writing because I love getting inside the heads of the characters and Ms. Chance does a very good job of allowing this.

Shortly after Susannah arrives, Judith dies giving birth to a third daughter and from this point on emotions are intense, confusing, and irresistible. Charity is devastated by the loss of her mother, resentful of her aunt, and desperately craves the affection of her father. Lucas bitterly misses his wife, is baffled by how best to raise his three daughters in a devout and modest fashion, and conflicted by his growing attraction to his sister-in-law who, according to the laws of the time, he is required to regard as is actual sister. Susannah, who was raised in a brutal home environment, ran away at sixteen and has lived her life as a kept woman by a couple of lovers. Because of her life in London she does not understand and cannot relate to the intensely strict, humorless, and unyielding behaviors of many of the people she finds herself living among. And then the witch hysteria begins.

Throughout the tale Ms Chance seamlessly blends in real characters of the time including Rebecca Nurse who was a beloved member of the community but, once accused, still hanged as a witch. I have visited the Rebecca Nurse Homestead and loved being able to envision that as part of the setting of the story. Rebecca's son Samuel is Lucas's friend and a kind and sympathetic character in no small part because of what happened to his mother. Other real characters enter the story, the peculiar Sarah Goode and her little daughter Dorcas who was jailed at the age of 4 as a witch.

But, despite the background being that of the Witch Hysteria and its events being the primary means of moving the story forward, the author never strays too far from the real story, the forbidden love of Lucas for Susannah, the endless kindness of Susannah for her sister's family, and the adolescent angst and confusion of Charity for all the disappointments in her young life.

I loved Susannah. She was a beautiful, appealing character who was both kind and passionate as well as intelligent. Like An Inconvenient Wife, the story touched on the themes of the powerlessness of women. Like Lucy in that story, Susannah is an intensely passionate woman who has to find a way to get though a terrible time using her wits and her skill. And, even though I wanted to swat Lucas for being thick-headed at times, I loved him, too. He turned out to be the hero I wanted him to be.

The ending of the book, like the ending of An Inconvenient Wife, is open to interpretation, another thing I love. I like stories that allow me to imagine alternate possibilities. But I loved this book and I loved Susannah and look forward to more novels by Megan Chance.

Thanks for reading.