The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie's grandmother's abandoned home near Salem, she can't refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest--to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.

This is my first Katherine Howe novel that I have read. I found it engrossing, and a very quick read for me. The books follows a girl named Connie while she is finishing her dissertation for college, all along while cleaning out her grandmother's home for her to sell, per her mother's request. The home is very old, and has since been entwined and covered in brush and overgrown plants and herbs. Connie finds strange bottles with unknown contents as she's cleaning. She also stumbles upon an old bible with a key that has fallen out of it. Connie examines the key, and tries it in every lock around the home, yet it doesn't fit one door, desk lock, nothing. She puts the key into her pocket, and that is where it stays until she tries it over and again. Connie comes across a name, Deliverance Dane. She also meets a handsome young man named Sam, whom she spends most of her summer with. This book jumps from 1991 to 1692 back to 1991 to 1692, and so on and so on, in order to explain who Deliverance Dane was, if she were a witch, or if she were just ultimately, falsely accused. Colleen spends all of her summer trying to find some trail of Deliverance Dane, and finds nothing until she plays with the old english wording compared to todays. She has figured out that it is a book that she seeks, and must find in order to solve the mystery of Deliverace Dane. Her mentor, is beyond obsessed with Connie finding this book. He pushes her to keep looking, and he praises her by telling her how valuable her future will be if she helps him with the upcoming Colonial Association Speech. He is not at all what he seems, and I had a feeling earlier in the book that his intentions were selfish. I don't want to give any spoilers, so I will close in saying that this is a very good book, and I will definately be reading more Katherine Howe novels. I purchased this book on www.amazon.com