The Minister's Daughter

I didn't have any idea that The Minister's Daughter was a YA novel, either, until coming here to write a review. I just finished it an adored it. Not only does it treat both Pagan and Christian beliefs with respect and impartiality, but it's just a great story. The characters are vivid and compelling, the story is suspenseful, and the writing itself is highly skilled. I read an awful lot of books, and this one will have a permanent place on my shelf where others may be passed on to friends or sold. The Minister's Daughter isn't going anywhere - I'll want to re-read it many times!

This incredible and mystical story, The Ministers Daughter, takes place in a land full of adventure,excitement and danger lurking behind every rock. The Ministers Daughter,is a haunting tale that took place in Salem, where there was the two minsters daughter,Grace and Patience Madden. Grace was the one born beautiful and perfect at age fifteen.While on the other hand Patience not born as beautifulbut smart, keeps having bad dreams about the devil. Also, in this story there is a healer and the healers grandaughter Nell, who she was training to become the next village healer. In the beginning of the book Grace gets herself pregant by the blacksmith's son and dosent tell anyone about it.So throughtout the book she blames the grandmother for doing witchcraft on her,then the villages take the grandmother and decide to do a test. They are going to drown her and if she lives shes a witch, but sadly enough she dies anyway. Graces stomach is getting bigger and more villagers are getting more suspicious. At the end of the book, the villagers accused Nell of being a witch,but do theyend up hanging her?Or do they find out that Grace id lying? I really liked this book because it was full of adventure and excitment. If you like books that have you guessing the whole way with enormous amounts of action and chills going up your spine, then this is the book for you!

Set in a small English village in 1645, this is the story of Nell and her grandmother, both healers, who are accused of witchcraft. Nell is learning the craft of healing from her grandmother as the book opens; her grandmother still practices the "old ways" and supplies the village with potions and curatives as needed. Neatly tied into this mix is the existence of piskies and fairies, all of which conspire to help Nell and her grandmother as they are seen as kindred spirits. The existence of the two healers takes a sinister turn when the minister's eldest daughter finds herself with child and turns to Nell for a potion to rid herself of the burden. Once Nell refuses, accusations of witchcraft are brought against the two women by the minister's two daughters. This book does a credible job of showing how hysteria can grow and mob rules can make otherwise sane people turn against those they know should not be accused. Hearn also seamlessly weaves real historical persons and events into the story. I wasn't sure what to make of this book when I first started reading; I'd thought it was a straight historical novel. However, as the novel progressed, I found myself drawn further into this world by Hearn's expert language and imagination. The blend of magic and realism is artfully done and I can highly recommend this book to lovers of both historical fiction and fantasy. This is a rare one.

When I picked up this book, I must confess I was a tad skeptical because I don't read fantasy novels much. To my surprise, the novel was so well written that I finished it within 12 hours. THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER is a great read for anybody whose interested in the witchcraft trials of England and fantasy.

In the year 1645, England was torn in two, caught between the warring factions of the Royalists and the Parliamentarians. The people, particularly those who still lived in rural areas, were also torn between the old ways (those of pagan ritual and superstition) and the new ways (those of rationality, order, and a particularly austere form of Christianity). Julie Hearn's tremendous new novel, THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER, vividly embodies these conflicts in the deeply personal story of two young women from opposite sides of the divide. Nell is the granddaughter of the local cunning woman. Nell herself is a Merrybegot, a child conceived on Mayday, one of the most magical festivals of the year. Part healer, part midwife, part wise woman, Nell's grandmother feels the change in the air and, fearing for her own sanity as well as for her ability to continue practicing her arts in the changing political and religious environment, eagerly apprentices Nell to her craft. Soon enough, Nell is ministering not only to laboring human women and to flatulent men but also to piskies and other magical creatures, one of whom recognizes her as a chosen Merrybegot and rewards her with a gift more precious than anything she could have imagined. Grace, on the other hand, is the older daughter of the village's Puritan minister. Virtuous, devout and submissive, Grace is nothing like wild, bold Nell. Smitten with a handsome local boy, Grace soon finds herself pregnant with her own Merrybegot. Desperate to hide her pregnancy from her authoritarian father, she convinces her naïve younger sister Patience that her condition is the result of witchcraft practiced by Nell and her grandmother. Soon the villagers, torn between loyalty to the past and fear of the unknown, don't know whom to trust. In THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER, Julie Hearn masterfully condenses so many of the vast political and religious conflicts of the day into what seems on the surface to be a very small story about one girl's unwanted pregnancy and its unforeseen consequences. At the same time, she manages to craft a tale that is both historically resonant and genuinely magical, peopled as it is with real-life historical characters such as Charles II as well as by piskies (pixies). These magical creatures are not just your average diaphanous fairies, though; like much of the magic in the novel, their influences are far-reaching and, although they provide comic elements, their concerns are great. Nell herself acknowledges the power of the supernatural the first time she attempts to perform significant magic after her grandmother's death: "This is a trip of the most terrifying kind, so weird yet so utterly believable that to suffer it is to know yourself at the mercy of whatever devils your mind cares to spit in your face." The narrative structure of the book also contributes to its effectiveness. The bulk of the novel is narrated in a third-person present tense voice set in 1645 but carrying an oddly prescient tone,