She was real. She was rich and beautiful. She was tried as a witch in 1675--and survived. Based on the lives of Mary Bliss Parsons and Sarah Lyman Bridgeman,
My Enemy's Tears: The Witch of Northampton
, takes us back to life in the Puritan settlements along the Connectict River, a terrifying wilderness full of warring natives, natural wonders and disasters--portents of God's anger or a witch's meddling curse. Mary and Sarah grow up amid Puritan superstition and piety, busy with their household chores, one imagining a life different from her mother's and the other eager to marry and bear sons. They spend their married lives in the villages of Springfield and Northampton, where a youthful disagreement festers into a reason to hate and then to fear. As the years pass, one accuses the other of murder by witchcraft, prompting a trial before the Court of Assistants in Boston--17 years before the infamous Salem Witch Trials. This fictional account of a true story describes two lives in conflict--one cursed and one blessed--and the transcendent power of forgiveness.