Jeri Westerson: Why I Created Text to Speech Chapters for My Novels

Author Jeri Westerson

Jeri Westerson is the author of the marvelous Crispin Guest medieval noir mystery series, which is e very bit as brilliant, fun and enjoyable as she is jerself.  I was excited to get an announcment from her recently that she had created text-to-speech chapters for her web site so that readers who must or simply want to can hear a sampler of her detective's explooits.  I was excited because I am one of those wo has to read it that way, but more than that because it was I who posted on Historical Novel Society's Yahoogroup encouraging authors to look into this opportunity.  I wanted to knwo more about what made Jeri the one who "showed up".

Nan Hawthorne:  What formats are your novels available in, such as Kindle, audiobook, print, etc.?

Jeri Westerson: My novels are available first as print hardcovers, going to paperback after a year. They are also available on Kindle, but I know of no other e-book source. It’s up to the publisher to make it available in other formats. Sadly, because of the expense, fewer books are offered in audiobook format. So you won’t see mine in audiobooks unless a spectacular movie is made of it and demand becomes much higher.

Nan Hawthorne:  We can hope!  What made you decide that you would produce a text to speech chapter to put on your website?

Jeri Westerson: I thought it would be a fun thing to have, especially with the British accent reading it. Unfortunately, the text to speech still has a ways to go in making it sound more natural, especially where the pauses should be. It always sounds as if they are asking a question. But it’s also nice to make it available to my visually impaired readers, like you, Nan, so all and sundry can get a chance to get sold on the books.

Nan Hawthorne:   Which books did you do that with?

Jeri Westerson: All three of them: Veil of Lies, Serpent in the Thorns, and the newest The Demon’s Parchment.

Nan Hawthorne:   What tools did you use to create the sample?

Jeri Westerson: Well, here’s where I had to have help. I used Accapela Text Aloud and it was easy enough to make audio files, but my website wouldn’t accept the wav or mp3 files because they were too big. So I elicited the help of my web maven, Sue Trowbridge, to scramble it together into something Wordpress would accept.

Nan Hawthorne:  Why did you choose those tools and the voice?

Jeri Westerson: It was the first software I heard that offered a British accent, and I’m afraid that was the deciding factor for me, not that I shopped around too much.

Nan Hawthorne:  Tell us about the process, what it required, whether it was difficult, etc.

Jeri Westerson: If Wordpress had cooperated it would have been a piece of cake. But once the software was downloaded to my computer, and I incorporated the specific voice—“Graham” (my son’s name, by the way)—it was easy to upload the first chapter of my novels to the software. I added pauses after “London, 1384” but some took and some didn’t. The compression that Sue had to make to allow the files to fit in Wordpress’ parameters unfortunately made the voice sound a bit tinny, like it was coming through bad speakers. I suppose it’s still an experiment in the making.

Nan Hawthorne:  What were the pros and cons of producing the audio sample?

Jeri Westerson: Well, the software wasn’t too expensive but expensive enough that I had to make it work since I spent the money (about $60) and as I said, if Wordpress had accepted the sample I made right away it wouldn’t have taken long at all to upload, but I’m not a techie person. Just enough to get myself into trouble. I have a feeling this was pretty basic software and to get proper pauses after, say, the chapter heading or scene changes, I would have to insert them manually. That’s pretty labor intensive, not something I was willing to take the time to do.

Nan Hawthorne:  What was your publisher's take on your doing this?

Jeri Westerson: I can’t imagine they know anything about it or care. I am allowed, technically, to offer about a chapter length of each novel for free so that’s what’s now out there.

Nan Hawthorne:  Are there any plans to make your novels accessible for people who are blind or otherwise print impaired through, say, the National Library Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped or BookShare.org (links below)?

Jeri Westerson: I believe they are all available on Bookshare. I’d have to check to see if The Demon’s Parchment has been included.

Nan Hawthorne:  Why do you want people who are print impaired to be able to read your novels?

Jeri Westerson: I want EVERYONE to read my novels and love them! Who wouldn’t? The more accessible the merrier. And convenient. That’s what’s great about e-readers. You can enlarge the type and, I believe, you can also make it a text to speech book. There are lots of options out there now to make these things accessible. The technology will only get better.
People can give it a try at www.JeriWesterson.com. Go to the “novels” link.

Nan Hawthorne:  Can't thank you enough, Jeri.  As I have repeatedly said, some of the most engaged and enthusiastic readers are those with vision or other print impairments... and if you are in the writing viz to share your stories, you couldn't have a better readership.  The only thing preventing this is a lack of awareness of the alternate formats.

Coincidentally, wI just heard today that my own novel, An Involuntary King, has been recorded by the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library and once it is reviewed and the recording produced, it will be abailable for any blidn or otherwise print impaired patron of the National LIbrary Services to download or requestion digital cartridge.

If you would like to know more about accessible books for the blind and print imapired, just keep reading this blog, or drop me a note at hawthorne@nanhawthorne.com .

And the world becomes a few books more readable.

Related links:

• http://www.jeriwesterson.com/  Go to the “novels” link
• NextUp.com, makers of Textloud and other sikilar products
• BookShare.org
• National Library Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

Kindle 3 Tour, Part II: Clearing the Air About Amazon's Kindle 3

A recent review of Amazon's Kindle 3 appeared recebtly on AccessTechNews at http://accesstechnews.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/kindle/ .

I decided I wanted to check out their concerns to see if I found them accurate.  For the record, I am sitting here at my computer with my Kindle 3 ready to try each concern step by step.

Most of the criticisms were valid.  The reason they have not bothered me is that I only use the thing to read.  But these omissions mean the Kindle still has a long way to go.

On the other hand other objections were either untrue or hardly different from any other reading device, including those coming out of the actual blind industry.

The reviewer starts by explaining that s/he read the manual first and made initial judgments about the Kindle 3 based on that. I completely agree that manuals need to be complete, accurate and easy to use, and based on what the review says, the Kindle 3 manual is not. The misunderstandings I found in the review may well come from unfulfilled expectations or misapprehensions thanks to the manual. Amazon needs to get some print impaired people to check out the instructions in the manual.

1. "the text-to-speech capabilities of the device are referred to as 'experimental' giving the immediate impression that functionality would be lacking"

Saying this is a presumption and not necessarily logical. I think in this review it, as they say in court evidence rules, prejudicial.

2. "trying to activate the TTS capabilities. While the manual describes the procedure, there is no description of the number of key presses needed to accomplish each task, without this, a hotkey toggle, or the ability to turn TTS on through accessible software while it is connected to a computer, it is not possible for a blind user to independently activate the speech capabilities."

This is true.  It is also true of many many things not specifically designed for but rather inclusive of print impaired consumers.    In those cases we tend to find shortcuts through other means, and to this purpose I have published a detailed explanation of how to turn on the ability to play menu optionsin another post on this same blog.

3.   "in a title however, the user is greeted with silence."

Not true.  On the menu I selected one of the book titles I have on the home screen.  Before I selected it, the Kindle said "Captain's Surrender, Alex Beecroft".  When  pushed the navigation button to select, I heard "Captain's Surrender" and the location and percentage read following that.

4.  "it is necessary to press the 'Text' key, located to the right of the space bar, and arrow down, several times, until the option, 'Text to Speech, Turn on' is reached.

True.  I have trouble faulting the Kindle for this, as most devices require more than one step to start.  On the digital talking book machine I got from national Library Services  the steps needed depend on whether the user downloaded the book him/herself.  If s/he did, s/he must know the sequence of buttons to push to find the book s/he wants to read, then push the play button. 

Once you have started reading a book on Kindle the number of steps reduces to one, just like the digital talking book machine.

5.  'Pressing the Select key will immediately cause the document to begin speaking.

True.

6.  'Pressing the Text key again, while speech is active, will allow the user to move through choices including speech rate and speech voice.'

True, but there is more to choose from.  You also have the option to pause test to speech.

7.  'Pressing the space bar will pause and resume speech. It should be noted that if speech is paused, pressing the Text key does not present the options to control speech rate and voice, only the option to resume speech is given.'

True.  You will have to press the correct keys to get it it show those.

8.  "navigation within the text is not possible"

True.  A definite demerit.

9. "A blind user cannot move by character, word, sentence, or paragraph (all necessary features if the device is to be used as an educational aid). "

True as far as I can tell.

10.  "navigation by chapter and section also does not appear to be possible."

I'm still looking into this.  My guess is that this is true.

11.  "Neither are the annotation and notation features. "

True.

12.  "While menu items to insert an annotation or note are spoken, once activated there is no speech to guide the user through the process."

True and disappointing.
13.  'returning to the home screen and changing titles, or for that matter executing certain functions within a title, it is necessary to reactivate text-to-speech for the document. '

True but hardly unusual or unable to be overcome.

14.  "if the reading position has changed visually, the text-to-speech position will also change locations"

True.

15.  "not possible for a blind user to shop the Kindle store with the Kindle itself. There is no text-to-speech provided in this area. All books will need to be purchased through the Amazon web site and sent to the device when a Wi-Fi or Whispernet connection is available.

True and very annoying though you can still shop via the web site. 

Finally,  "As the Kindle holds great promise for all users, and unprecedented access to a vast library of electronic titles for blind users in particular, we hope Amazon’s development team is able to improve the currently obvious shortcomings of the Kindle and release firmware updates to make this a truly functional product for the blind. However, the lack of consistent text-to-speech in documents, and inability for blind users to navigate within titles must be addressed before we can even consider recommending this device."

I agree, although it might be fairer to recommend it on a limited basis.  I must say that only if we as print impaired readers can  make this worthwhile for them.  Development of these features are not financially rewarding for Amazon, nevertheless they have been developing them, despite their losses.  As is true for every other innovation in business is normally driven by the consumer.  Blind people as a group appear to me to be poor consumers.  We seem to think business does what it does because otherwise we will yell at them.  While that sometimes works, there is something that works much better and faster... cooperation and consumerism.

The problem I have had with the disgruntled blind and the Kindle is not that I think every one of us should run right out and buy a Kindle.  I am not going to buy an iPad or a Nook.  Why?  I don't want one.  That is all the reason a person needs.  But when bitter recriminations are put in the place of simple personal choice, and things are said about a product that are simply untrue, it give me reason to shake my head.  So if you don't want a Kindle, don't buy one.. but don't trash Amazon for it not being perfect.

The Black Flower, by Howard Bahr

The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War

Howard Bahr

This heart-wrenching novel packs a lot into just three or four days.  With several major characters with stories that fit them uniquely into the event of a battle near Franklin, Tennessee towards the end of the Civil War, you will have a lot to keep your mind and tear ducts involved.  Before I go on, let me reassure you that this is not a melodramatic or maudlin novel, but rather an exquisitely crafted insight into everything that can go into the human soul.

Bushrod Carter, along with his two friends from Cumberland, Mississippi, Jack and Virgil C., await a late evening battle, an odd choice of time for their Confederate commanders to plan.  Before the battle even begins, one of the three is dead, and the other two are fated to be badly wounded in the assault on the Union battle works.  Bushrod and a spinster named Anna are about to come together in the house of her cousin whom she is visiting and which has been commandeered as an army hospital after the bloodiest of battles.  As Anna says, to herself, to God and to Bushrod himself, "I could have loved this boy."  In the meantime others' small dramas are playing out, some affecting the would-be lovers and some not.  You learn about these separate dramas through reminiscences by the characters or their friends: the shy mountain boy who devotes himself to Anna and Bushrod; the music teacher who thinks he is the Archbishop of Canterbury; the child who is touched by a story about a pony; the ne'er-do--well who, having been buried alive by Bushrod and his buddies, understandably but brutally wants to punish the men.; the tragic young Yankee staff officer dreaming of returning to Franklin as he is felled by a sharpshooter.

Bahr indulges himself in lots of foreshadowing, doing things like having Anna halfway through the novel described as  years later refusing to attend the unveiling of a statue of a soldier because it reminds her too much of someone.Fortunately all this hinting is just confusing enough that you can convince yourself you don't really know what's going to happen.  You hope.

The one problem I had with this novel was a bit of sentimental excess where people who fought or lost a loved one on both sides waxes philosophical about what war is all about, and was it worth it?  This did not ring true to me.  I have a hard time believing that in 1865 and years soon thereafter there was much 1960s-like angst about the horrors of war.  Many books written today adopt this anachronistic sentiment, and it just doesn't work all the time.

I read this book as a download from NLS BARD.  It is the October book for Let's Read Historical Novels  at AccessibleWorld.org .

NEXT:  Transgressions, by Erastes

Frost Fair, by Erastes

Frost Fair

Erastes

London, 1814.  Gideon  Frost is a young down on his luck printer.  Not so young Joshua Redfern  is a former Royal Navy officer who appears to be part of the nouveay riche class of successful businessmen.  The two are attracted to each other but afraid of a combination of rejection and of putting each other in danger of discovery.  During that time, "don't ask don't tell" meant the difference between survival or being hanged, so any sort of gay love story that takes place in is poignant, perilous, and downright heroic.

Two occurences bring the impossible reltionship to a head.  The Thames freezes over, a real 1814 event drawing people out to an impromptu "Frost Fair" on the ice.  Gideon and his street urchin assistant, Mord, are there with their printer turning out souvenir etchings of the event.  In the meantime, Redfern has introduced his secret crush to his friend, a sort of Oscar Wilde clone,  who decides he wants first dibs on Gideon.  When the young man rejects his advances the Wilde character  sends bully boys out to sing the printing pressthrough the ice to the bottom of the Thames.  Gideon is ruined.  Knowing nowhere else to turn he goes to Joshua and is fiven a job below stairs.  They wind up gloriously in bed together,  but quite ingloriously split the next morning when Joshua lets slip that he knows Gideon has turned tricks on occasion in St. Paul's churchyard.

Will they get over the class sistinctions?  Will Joshua get wise to his foppish buddy's lies?  Will Mord rip everyone a new one?  Will lvoe conquer all?

I read this novella on my Kindle3.  I look forward to reading another Erastes M/M romances, as the two I have read so far (this novella and Standish)  have had the same basic two lead characters, a well off relatively sophisticated older man and a somewhat fey poorer man, just a bit too mdominant/passice for my tastes in gay relationships.  I hoe Transgressions is different.

The Swordsman, by Mel Keegan

The Swordsman

Mel Keegan

In this novella based, so I am told, on a series of fan fiction stories by Mel Keegan,  Jack is a swordsman trying to make a fortune so he can go back home and ransom his father and his kingdom from their oppressors. 

Sebastian is the son of the Duke of  a far nation that is situated most advantageously the main river that flows through the world.  Sebastian has just had an assassination attempt made on him, so his best buddy talks the magician, the doctor and the castellan to hire swordsman Jack to be his bodyguard.

Jack soon realizes that the reason Sebastian's old leg wound is not healing is that it has a hex on it.  The rest of the story is how the to men a) fall in love with each other, and b) find out who did the hexing and how to stop him.  This involves some sweet hot love scenes and a lot of crawling about in caves fighting creatures who turn from wolves into humanoids of superhuman strength.

I would dearly love to know what this fan fiction is fans of.  I probably would not recognize it anyway, since Keegan is Australian, and I am not.

This is a fun, sometimes sexy, and romantic novel in the M/M romance genre.  One thing I appreciated was that the lovers do not fall into stereotyped gender roles.  Jack and Seb are equally butch.  I like the cat, Mags, with whom Jack can speak, but I kept expecting to find out a particular character is allied with the bad guy when he wasn't.  I was relieved, but also kept wondering what other purpose the fellow could have in the story.

I was very pleased to learn that Keegan is a big proponent of the concept of ebooks as "democratic" in Keegan's words and "populist" in mine.  Her books are all fast becoming available on Kindle with the text to speech enabled, praise the god of blind people, so I will get to read every last one of them.  That is exactly how I read this one.  Thanks Mel!!!  Good on you.

Expanded Text-to-speech on Kindle 3: A Tour, Part I Turning the Voice Guide On

The image to the left shows the smaller, fully accessible Kindle 3 propped up against just a fraction of the books you can store on the device.

No matter what the disgruntled blind may say, the new Amazon Kindle 3 is accessible.  With the addition of the Voice Guide to the already existing text to speech feature, anyone can get the fully accessible Kindle 3 going.  The only barrier is turning on the Voice Guide to start with.  This article is my answer to the fellow who complained that he would need sighted help for this.  No, my friend, you don't, because you have me.

Turn the Kindle  On

If when you receive it your Kindle doesn't turn on, it may simply need to be charged.  The cord and removable plug are right there in the package.  Plug the end without the electrical plug into the port on the leading edge of your Kindle 3.  It's easy, it's the only hole it will go into. 

On the leading rim there are two slide buttons.  The one on the left is volume.  You want the one on the right.  Slide it to the right to turn your Kindle on.  That is also how you turn your Kindle off.

Turn the Voice Guide On

1.. On the bottom front of the device are a number of buttons.  The long thin button at the top right of this area is "menu".  Press that once.  It will pull up a screen menu, but you won't be able to see it yet.  You will just have to do this by hand. 

2.  Under the menu button, there is a square box with ridges all around.  This is a navigation button where the ridge at each direction allows you to move up, down, left and right respectively and which if you press it in the middle makes your selection.  Press the r part of this button SEVEN times.    Then push the middle.

3.  This takes you to the Settings menu.  Locate the two long buttons on the left edge of the device.  Theese are the buttons which you press to go to the previous or next page.  Now you want to push the next page, the bottom button.

4.  You are now right on the Voice Guide Turn On button.  Go back to the square button on the lower right with the ridges and push it in the middle.  You now will have every menu item read aloud to you.  Try it by pressing the lower ridge on the bacigation button.  You should hear something about a passowrd.  Now just start prewwing the buttons like the "menu" or other ones to see where you can go.

If for any reason this does not work, it may be that on your device it starts down the menu at a different point .  Start over.  When you get to Step 2 where I say to press the lower ridge five times, try four or six instead.

I don't need to tell you another thing.  You now have bomplete access to all the book reading and subscription choices on your Kindle 3.

Get the new Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Wi-Fi, 6" Display, Graphite - Latest Generation .

Please send your Kindle 3 questions to me at hawthorne@nanhawthorne.com .

Coming soon!  More tips on the Kindle 3 for print impaired readers.

A Close Run Thing, by Allan Mallinson

A Close Run Thing

Allan Mallinson

This is another novel I would like to review the book jacket descriiption.  The event it spotlights is over in about the first half dozen pages of the book and really only bears a glancing degree of importance to the rest of the story.  What you really have here is the story of Matthew Hervey,  a coronet in the cavalry fighting Napoleon just as they have penetrated France and will soon see the Little Corporal captured and sent to Elba.

Hervey is a vicar's son who just doesn't have the money to rise in the ranks.  His field commission gets him a lieutenancy, but it looks like that's as far as he is going to go.  His first-several-pages heroics have nearly gotten him court martialed and he is wounded as well.  A nun at a convent nurses him back to health, gets him interested in Ignatius Loyola's writings, and gives him a ring to take to her father.

If you thought that was going to be the direction of the plot hereafter, you were wrong.  This book feels like three episodes, only tangentially connected.  First, after a visit home, Hercey finds himself transferred to Cork where he gets involved in landlord-tenant disputes of a deadly kind.  He almost gets a love interest in a young Irish woman, but all that serves to do is remind him of his sweetheart Henrietta ho has been treating him rather casually.  Once he remembers, proposes and is accepted, he, and we readers as well, are allowed to forget about her.

Now it's Waterloo and Hervey is back to the war with Boney.  We all know how Waterloo turns out, only I am surprised Richard Sharpe and Hervey don't get in each other's way as they seem to be the hero who accomplished several of the same or similar things.  Hervey finds the nun's father, and the nun too, and returns the ring, and that's all there is to it... oh and he got his captaincy.

As I observed there is not a great deal of connection between the three segments of this novel.  The one constant seems to be the angst all his commanding officers constatnly express that they cannot honor him as Hervey deserves.  It wears a little thin after a while.

The composition is fine, though the organization of the novel is at best disconnected, and the characters only a little stock.

My husband and I listened to this book together on audio cassettes borrowed from our public library.

People of the Nightland, by Kathleen O'Neal Geear and W. Michael Gear

People of the Nightland

Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear

North America's Forgotten Past

Two factors  led me to read People of the Nightland: I really liked People of the Lakes, which you can find reviewed on this blog, and because it was one of the relatively small number of books that have made it into the National Library Services' downloadable book catalog.  Not sure why, but they are adding series books in what might as well be random order.  In the case of the Gears' books, that's not really a problem as far as I can tell.  It is not an ongoing story of a set of characters.

This volume takes place about 13,000 years ago just as an Ice Age is about to end in a terrible cataclysm, the bursting of an ice dam and the flooding out of a huge swath of the land and all it contained.  Something like this happened in my own neck f the woods when an ice dam in what is now Idaho carved out the Columbia River Valley in a most dramatic way.  Just as in other Gear books, there is at least one mystic, a Dreamer, who knows this is going to happen, and the story concerns his efforts to warn people and others' efforts to manipulate him or kill him.

From the start of the story, which has the usual preface showing archaeologists discovering evidence of the people or events in the novel, every character in the book is suffering some great loss.  Windwolf of the Sunpath People has lost his wife whose rape and murder he blames on himself.  Skimmer lost her husband.  The War Leader for the Nightland People,  Kakala's wife perished while both were imprisoned.  The traitor Goodeagle has lost everything, his dear friend, his tribe, his honor.  About the only one who has lost no one is the Guide, Ti-Bish, who never had anyone.  Slow witted, he has been outcast by his people, only having known kindness from Skimmer.

The novel is set in the region north of the Great Lakes at the end of one of the Ice Ages.   The god figure, Raven Hunter warns the Guide that the ice dams will break and all the land and people will be destroyed.  The peculiar aspect of this prediction is that the god does not tell them how to save themselves but only to put themselves in greater danger, though they don't know that.  It seems he wants to destroy the people of his brother Wolf Dreamer, with whom he has a cosmic conflict.  He is willing to destroy his own people to accomplish this. 

The immediate background of this story is that the Nightland People, who live in and near the glaciers,  have been warring against the Sumpath, people of the more southerly taiga and who up to now ave been involved in petty border skirmishes against each other.  When you join the story the Nightland warriors have all but won the struggle.    The distrust and jealousies  of the Sunpath tribes has served to weaken them to the point that the one man who could have held the Nightland at bay, Windwolf, has all he can do to get any sort of cooperation.  In the meantime the Nightland war leaders  Kakala and Keresa are disillusioned and starting to question the virtue of following orders they have been told came straight from the Guide.  In fact, a corrupt Nightland chief, Nashar, who cannily co-opted the Guide to be his puppet.  Throughout Ti-Bish believes that Nashar is administering his commands while in fact Nashar has claimed all his own orders came from the Guide.  Each character has his or her own struggle, a journey to learn what the truth is and what his or her role is in death or survival of all the people.

The authors help keep track of all these characters and their respective allegiances by giving all the Nightland people Nightland names like Nashar, Ti-Bish, Karigi, Kakala and Keresa, while the Sunpath perople have the translated names Windwolf, Bramble, Lookingnill, Skimmer, and Ashes.  The characters are well enough drawn and distinct that you need not worry you will lose track of so many.   The personal relationships are as complicated and often unexpected as can be.  The view of a lost history is fascinating enough as it is, but this is a story of human pain and healing that transcends cultures and times.

I read the book which I downloaded from National Library Services BARD on my digital talking book machine that was likewise provided by them.  I thank Amazon's "Look Inside the Book" feature for being able to use correctly spelled names in this review!

Daughters of the Witching Hill, by Mary Sharratt

Daughters of the Witching Hill

Mary Sharrat

This book takes place at the end of the Tudor era and the beginning of the Stuart.  That would usually turn me off, since I am, as I loudly proclaim, "sick to death of Tudors!"  What immediately saved this book for me is that for once it was a novel about the common people, people for whom Queen Elizabeth is little more than a tabloid name like Angelina Jolie is to me.  I do wish more historical novels were written about Just Plain Folks.

Daughters of the Witching Hill is two stories, both told in first person, of a "blesser", a woman with some herbcraft and magick, and her own granddaughter, Alison, who knows neither.  Most of the early story concerns the older woman and her life as a Blesser, her relationships, how superstition affects how others see her, and her family of misfits.  Alison's story recounts how over several years paranoia about witches develops into a terrible threat to everyone they know and love.  While life was no bed of roses for the grandmother, once Alison is a teen, the culture is rife with persecution of people perceived as or simply associated with people perceived as witches.  The motivation of people splits between three aims, revenge, greed, and simple fear.

The two characters narrating the story appear to be under the impression that the Old Religion, in this case meaning Roman Catholicism, was much more accepting of latent pagan practices and even used its symbols to meld people's beliefs into Christianity.  Then came the split in the Church, specifically the English Catholic Church with the reigning monarch as the head of the church.    Then it all hit the fan, not just for those Roman Catholics who prefer ed to continue worshiping as they wished but anyone who did not fit a rather Puritanical application of religion.  There is a good deal of sentimental nostalgia for the good old days o Papal dominance, something that put me off as simply too pat.  Never mind what Cranmer, and Cromwell, and Edward VI were going on about, was the common person that invested in which religion they practiced  The image of the village church in this novel is thoroughly Puritan.  I honestly don't know if Sharratt's depiction is accurate or perhaps too stereotyped.  What is definitely true is that King James I was a really witch hunter.  Why Mary Queen of Scots was so paranoid about demons and witches I don't know, but no one disputes that he was, least of all because he literally wrote the book on the subject.

Enter the politically manipulative, in this case the sheriff who decide3s to curry favor by seeking out nests of witches and their familiars and imprison, try and execute them in order to make James look their way gratefully.  Of course, it is not hard to set people up to incriminate themselves.   Just be kind and confidential and make promises and you can get almost anyone to admit anything.  But given the kangaroo courts involved even that hardly seemed worth the bother.  Alison, her grandmother, her mother and brother, and several friends and neighbors find themselves in a dungeon in Lancaster with little or no hope of justice.  In many ways this novel answers the question, but what if they were practitioners of some form of magick?  In this case they are, but it is reinterpreted as as an amalgam of Catholicism and natural science.

One omission I regretted is some sort of conclusion to the grandmother's revelation that the sheriff is actually her half brother and that Alison ought to remember that.  I kept expecting some sort of confrontation or blackmail but the most Alison does with the information is creep herself out even more thanks to the man's sexual attetnions.  Harrdly seemed empowering.. or did I miss something?

The novel is well written, has compelling characters, lots of tension, and a rather satisfying ending, in spite of everything.  Read it if only to catch the slice of life of the bast majority of people in a given place and time, the major virtue, in my humble opinion, of historical fiction.

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I was just so glad to finally be able to read and review this novel.  I was contacted some time ago by the publisher to do the review, but the Kindle version they provided was not text-to-speech enabled.  Some publishers are erroneously convinced that if people can make their Kindle read their books aloud no one will buy the professionally produced audio books.  I told them that meant I could not read the book, but I guess my review was worth it, because the author sent me a file in an accessible format.  Lo and behold when I got my latest Kindle I discovered the book is now text-to-speech enabled!  So wound up buying the copy I used for this review.  The lesson here, fellow babies, is "Text-to-speech Is Good!":