The Wolves Of Andover
is a prequel to Kathleen Kent’s best-selling first novel, The Heretic’s Daughter. That
story was set during the time of the Salem
witch trials, and concerns the accused Martha Currier her brave young daughter,
Sarah and the spectre of potentially fatal family secrets. Written with grace
and lyricism, Kent's
debut played out at a galloping pace that made for a fine first work of
fiction.
The Wolves Of Andover
steps back in time to tell Martha's back story as she comes of age in Colonial
Massachusetts in the 1670s. The unmarried and seemingly unmarriageable Martha
Allen is sent nearly as a servant to help out at her pregnant cousin's house.
Past twenty years old, and considered a hopeless old maid, stubborn Martha is "passed like an old kettle" to the new family. Life is hard; luxuries, even
pleasures are few. Wolves prowl the countryside, and Indians and deadly pox
pose daily threats. Martha is haunted not only by these immediate dangers, but
by memories of her own childhood abuse at the hands of a minister—a secret she
reveals only to her hidden red notebook.
Martha is intrigued almost against her will by a tall
Welshman named Thomas, handyman and laborer at her cousin's farm. Thomas may
have secrets of his own, linking him dangerously to the death of King Charles.
Meanwhile, a parallel plot shows us the seedy side of life in England under
the second King Charles, who seeks
vengeance for his father's murder. This subplot is surely the novel's weak link,
filled as it is with villains who seem to have been sent over by Central
Casting—the snarky servant to the king, the bloodthirsty bullies, the randy
king etc. Altogether too much space is
devoted to this British gang and their violent doings, making The Wolves Of Andover darker and more
gruesome than it need be, and slowing the novel's pacing.
On the other hand, Kent
is a master at conveying the details of life in seventeenth-century New England. The trading of two piglets for a bolt of
fine wool; the slippery elm used to ease a newborn's passage; live traps set
for marauding wolves. Moments such as
these open a window onto both the world and the voice of Colonial America, as
do some of Martha's musings: "the sorts of words that the Old Scotsmen still
used were like pepperweed in a mutton stew." What's more, Martha is a genuinely
engaging heroine, and Thomas emerges as a worthy counterpart. Their slow,
reluctant but passionate courtship comes to life under Kent's hand: "She wound
her arms more tightly around his neck, impressing herself onto him, promising
to wear the unintended bruises like the flags of a new country."
As passages such as the above indicate, The Wolves Of Andover will largely
appeal to devotees of straightforward historical romance, though admirers of The Heretic's Daughter may also welcome the chance to come to know Martha Currier
better. And the story, while at its
center a predictable fulfillment of its heroine's deferred hopes, has one or
two marvelous twists, including one hero hidden where you'd never expected to
find him.
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