The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs by Katherine Howe

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One of the first ebooks I remember ever reading was The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and I remember being completely engrossed in the history of the Salem witch trials and the life of Connie Goodwin, graduate student. Connie is back. Now a professor in Boston, she’s an expert in her field of American history and witchcraft, with her own family tracing their history to those horrific trials. Balancing book research, teaching, grading, mentoring, and her family, Connie is exhausted and overwhelmed. It’s through her research and ominous discussions with her mother that lead Connie to believe that Sam, her fiancé, is in danger. Looking back through her family’s history, Connie learns that every woman loses the love of her life and Connie isn’t willing to let anything happen to Sam. With the help of her friends and a graduate student named Zazi, Connie is in a race against time to decipher a cryptic note found in her family’s grimoire that she believes is the key to saving Sam.

I flew through this book in one sitting because I could not put it down. The flashbacks between Connie’s family in the 1660’s and 1700’s and the current day provided a layered and engrossing story of love, loss, and determination. Connie’s hippie mother Grace is such a wonderful character-her home full of herbs, antiques, and old musty books. To think that someone has books that are hundreds of years old in their study and you can look at them at any time is just fascinating to me. I loved when Connie would begin to decipher some spell and need an herb and Grace was just like, oh yes, I keep that in the garden...Of course she would have a garden full of poisonous and hallucinogenic plants.

The scenes were Connie and Zazi were conducting research were some of my favorites. I loved the inside look at how you trace property deeds and find out who was married to whom through court records. There was so much to remember-how someone could have different spellings of their name or how if one track doesn’t pan out try another. It was such a tedious task and Connie and Zazi had to go at it over and over again. There was nothing quick about it and I think that helped build the tension and urgency over the supposed curse that threatened Sam.

I absolutely loved this book. Well written, with interesting characters and the ability to transport you through time, it would be a great choice for lovers of witchcraft and America’s occult history.

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