We vacation at Harwich on the Cape for two weeks each summer, and the setting of this book is right next door -- in Brewster and Yarmouth, in 1713 and 1992. And I've long been tempted to write about another "witch" from that time -- Grace Sherwood of Virginia. (See www.samizdat.com/sherwood)
Before diving in, calibrate your expectations -- this is light fun romance. There are scifi-style time shifts from 1713 to 1992 and back again, but without scifi-style explanation. In a thunderstorm, by simply walking across a field to help someone in evident distress, Dr. Angus McPhearson walks into the past. Just suspend your disbelief, as you do when watching a tape of Brigadoon, which the good doctor was watching right before this scene.
Also, don't expect detailed descriptions of what it was like to live in 1713 in Massachusetts, and don't expect satiric contrasts between the life styles of then and now, a la Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Yes, you will occasionally be reminded that the life styles, beliefs, and expectations are different -- but with a light touch. Here is the doctor wearing a jogging outfit and running shoes, with a Rolex watch on his wrist, and a well-stocked medical bag walking into Yarmouth 280 years ago and being immediately accepted, and more or less fitting in. Often, he barriers he faces are ones of personality and knowledge rather than of time. Those differences aren't the focus of the story; they are its context. The focus is on the characters and what they say and do.
Just expect and enjoy a love story, with a twist -- a doctor in 1992 falling in love with a 15-year-old purported witch in 1713.
When Angus arrives, summoned in the storm by Maria Hallett's father, who has an intriguing, but never explained understanding of how the time-shift works, Maria is an unwed mother giving birth to the son of a pirate Sam Bellamy. Angus saves her life and the life of her son, with his medical skill. Then he almost immediately saves her from condemnation as a witch, by offering to marry her. (Remember, this is romance -- love at first sight.)
Much of the fun -- and there's lots of fun here -- comes from the interplay of Angus and his new bride, as Angus adapts to his new timeframe, as Maria adapts to being married to this stranger, and as the two of them cope with the looming menace of her son's father -- Sam the pirate. The dialogue moves fast -- unencumbered with pedantic realism, which would have made communication between the two of them difficult (imagine bumping into Cotton Mather on the street and striking up a conversation with him -- the differences in vocabulary and grammar and accent). The plot moves along quickly too, focusing on their relationship first, Sam the pirate second, her family third, and, last of all, the minor challenges posed by the time difference.
Maria is presented as an enticing, quick-witted, playful, flirt. She has no magical powers other than her beauty and youth and vivacity. Thanks to the intervention of Angus, the townsfolk shift from considering her as a malevolent witch -- a dangerous label at a time not that long after the events in Salem -- to using the term "witch" in her presence playfully, almost as a compliment, as we might do today, with someone who is "enchanting" and "casts spells" on men.
If anyone has "magical" power it is her father, who was able to summon Angus through time, and who, without ever discussing such matters with him, understands that Angus can and must return to his own time.
As explained in the "Author's Letter" at the end, Janet Smith is a descendant of the historical Maria Hallett. And Maria's story has been told on the Discovery Channel, in National Geographic articles, and in Readers' Digest. In those other versions, Maria is considered as a witch. Janet explains, "since she was an ancestor of mine, I figured it was my forte to redeem her." But this Maria needs no redemption. She's simply delightful -- witch or no witch. I look forward to the promised sequel "Port Call to the Future".
Other book reviews by Richard Seltzer
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