Silence

I am no witch, nor adulteress, thief, nor murderer. They say I have lost my reason, but I know only that my heart is shattered, and in crying it aloud, now I must pay the cost. After three grievous losses, Puritan woman Silence Marsh dares to question God aloud in the church, and that blasphemy lands her in troubleshe is silenced for a year by the powers that be. Broken in heart and spirit, Silence learns to mime and sign, but it isnt until a new Boston doctor, the dashing Daniel Greenleaf, comes to her backward Cape Cod village that she begins to hope again. Rather than treating Silence with bleeding or leeches, Dr. Greenleaf prescribes fresh air, St. Johns Wort, long walksand reading. Silence has half a hope of getting through her year of punishment when the cry of witchcraft poisons the village. Colonial Massachusetts is still reeling from the Salem Witch Trials just 20 years before. Now, after demanding her silence, she is called to witness at a witchcraft trialor be accused herself. A whiff of sulfur and witchcraft shadows this literary Puritan tale of loss and redemption, based on the author's own ancestor, her seventh great-grandmother.