Sorceress by Celia Rees

Two Stars

When Agnes, a Native American, reads a book titled Witch Child, she recognized the story as one that has been passed down through her family for generations. The story of a white woman who joined her tribe over 400 years ago and became a renowned medicine woman. The end of the book asks for help tracking any of the people mentioned in the story, so Agnes emails the researcher in charge of the project.  Their conversation leads Agnes on a spiritual and life changing journey that connects her to her past in a very real way.

This book was okay. It’s the whole current character uncovers the true story from the past approach, but this one is a little different. Agnes uses more than just simple research to connect with Mary and discover what happened to her after she was chased out of the Puritan village.

Rees said she was trying to tell the rest of Mary’s story and that of her ancestors down to the present day, but I think it would have been better strictly as a continuation of only Mary’s story without all of the other stuff added in. The book is over 80% Mary, and the parts that aren’t are fairly superficial and don’t tell much about the other characters or their story beyond their involvement with this storyline. I didn’t see the need for the extra layer (other than it’s kind of interesting for the characters to be discussing the first book in the second one) and would have enjoyed it more as simply the rest of Mary’s story.

That said, I do enjoy Celia Rees' writing and will be looking into her other series.