1692. On the outskirts of Salem, a bookstore stands covered in overgrown vines. Inside, a young woman hides a linen-wrapped journal under a loose floorboard and runs away, panicked by the sound of hounds barking in the distance. The bookstore vanishes into thin air…

Present day. Stepping inside a pale-pink house on one of the oldest streets in Salem, Dora can’t believe she’s about to finally meet the mother she thought died tragically when she was just a child. But the excitement is short-lived. Dora’s mother has fear in her eyes, and with a trembling voice she whispers: ‘my life is in danger, and now so is yours…’

Desperate not to lose her mother all over again, Dora digs into her family’s mysterious past, and stumbles upon a seemingly impossible secret: the key to their survival is hidden in a bookstore that no one has seen for generations.

Losing herself amongst thorny brackens and twisted ferns, Dora eventually finds the path that leads to the bookstore. But someone is watching her. They’ve been waiting for her.

I love Helen Phifer, so I’m always going to read any book she releases. I got this book at the beginning of the year via a book voucher I’d recieved for christmas. It has been on the top of the 12 books on my bedside table since January. It has been a miserable windy and rainy day here and I may have overdone my back which has been screaming in pain today. So, there wasn’t really a lot of things I could have done with my time.

Books were made to be read on these kinds of days. I started reading this just after lunch and was confused when I looked at my phone and realised it was half past three! Didn’t realise how long I’d been reading for or how quickly the time had gone.

This is going to be a slightly vague book review because it would be so easy to spill what happens in the book through how I review it and that would be a shame. Anyone who goes on to read this book should be able to read it for the first time as an open book with no expectations. This book has a dual narrative 1692 & present day.

The book follows Dora. A florist. Someone who always feels like something is missing from her life, which I think is a feeling we can all connect with. She lives in London with her aunt. Life is good but it’s not complete.

In 1692, we are thrust into Salem during the witch trials. Life is simple. Different. But also cruel and fueled by hysteria. Even knowing the truth and facts about what went on in Salem, it shows, I think a testiment to where religious fascism can lead but also how easy it is for us to become caught up in a hysteria that to outsiders seems completely ridiculous and unbelivable.

Like many of the characters that Phifer writes, Dora has a lot of spunk, determination, daredevil nature, compassion, love, loyalty, and just a touch of madness. The characters Phifer writes could only belong in the world between pages. They go through so much. I have to stop and catch my breath every time I stub my toe and they’re already walking into the fire!

Dora wasn’t neccessarily put through as much as some of Phifer’s other characters but what information she discovers through the book would, I think, put her on par with some. Through the course of the book, and as the blurb suggests, Dora meets her mother, the person she thought had died a few days after her birth. It is a bittersweet moment, filled with much emotion. It is the closing of one door and the opening of another. It is both a sadness and a celebration for Dora.

Dora learns many things through this book and a lot of it comes all at onces and completely overwhelms her. She has a better head on her shoulders than most humans. The world of characters that surround Dora are pure and light which contrast starkly with the antagonist of the story. They walk a different path and are more attuned to the shadows and the light.

While many of the characters, including Dora are fictional, there are many that were real life people. The antagonist is one of these real characters. It actually prompted me to do further research on them to learn what their real actions were. Many of these real characters were not nice people, we should, all know of the truth of the salem witch trials, but the cruelity that people inflicted on the innocent isn’t something that should be forgotten. Amongst all the lore, myths, and mystery, innocent people were put to death, and that’s a shame.

The epilogue of this book is open ended. It leaves a gap should Phifer wish to write another book but it also leaves the main plot of this book wrapped up neatly.