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COMING IN OCTOBER, 2012

Illuminations: A Novel
of Hildegard von Bingen

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Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Benedictine abbess and polymath, composed an entire corpus of sacred music and wrote nine books on subjects as diverse as theology, natural science, medicine, and human sexuality—a prodigious intellectual outpouring that put many of her male contemporaries to shame. Her prophecies earned her the title Sibyl of the Rhine. An outspoken critic of political and ecclesiastical corruption, she courted controversy and nearly died an excommunicant. Her courage and originality of thought continue to inspire people today.

Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen reveals the unforgettable story of how Hildegard, offered as a tithe to the Church at the age of eight, triumphed against impossible odds to become the greatest woman of her age. Combining fiction, history, and Hildegardian philosophy, Illuminations presents an arresting portrait of a woman of faith and power—a visionary in every sense of the word.

Illuminations will be released in October 2012 to celebrate Hildegard's long awaited canonization and elevation to Doctor of the Church.

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Daughters of the Witching Hill
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Demdike's Charmes

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Set in Lancashire, England, during the infamous witch trials of 1612, Daughters of the Witching Hill reveals the true story of Bess Southerns, aka Old Demdike, cunning woman, healer and the most notorious of the Pendle Witches, and of Alizon Device, her granddaughter, struggling to come to terms with her family’s troubling legacy. Though the name of the Pendle Witches lives on, few know the hard-hitting details of the witch-hunt which tore apart a community. Set in an era of religious intolerance, political strife, suspicion and social inequality, this haunting story of strong women and family love and betrayal is more relevant than ever.

An American expat who has lived in Pendle for seven years, Mary’s inspiration for the novel arose directly out of the wild, brooding landscape: the story of the Pendle Witches unfolded almost literally in her backyard.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: Starred Review, December 14, 2009 Daughters of the Witching Hill Mary Sharratt. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24 (352p) ISBN 978-0-547-06967-8 The 1612 Lancashire, England, witch trials that resulted in nine executions inspires Sharratt’s gorgeously imagined novel that wonders if some of the accusations of witchcraft might be true. Sharratt (The Vanishing Point) focuses on the Southerns family of Pendle Forest. Widowed mother Bess Southerns tries to save her family from bleakest poverty by healing the sick, telling fortunes, and blessing those facing misfortune, conjuring “charmes” that combine forbidden Catholic ritual, medicinal herbs, and guidance provided by her spirit-friend, Tibb. Though Bess compassionately uses her powers, her granddaughter, Alizon, unwittingly endangers her family while under the interrogation of a conniving local magistrate. Sharratt crafts her complex yet credible account by seamlessly blending historical fact, modern psychology, and vivid evocations of the daily life of the poor whose only hope of empowerment lay in the black arts. Set in forests and towers, farms and villages, deep in a dungeon and on the gallows, this novel grows darker as it approaches its inevitable conclusion, but proves uplifting in its portrayal of women who persevere, and mothers and daughters who forgive. (Apr.)

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Press for Daughters of the Witching Hill

When Minnesotan Mary Sharratt moved to England, she was soon bewitched
—Feature article in Saint Paul Pioneer Press

Pendle Witches Cast Their Spell on American Author
—Feature article in Lancashire Telegraph

How I Became a Daughter of the Witching Hill
—Article on Bookbrowse.com

Praise for Daughters of the Witching Hill

Daughters of the Witching Hill offers a fresh approach with witches who believe in their own power and yet, in many ways, are still innocent. Sharratt's readers—like the magistrate who took the women's confessions—are likely to be spellbound by their stories.
—M.L. Johnson, AP, San Francisco Chronicle

Full of the reality of the day, this story is stark and real, but Sharratt's descriptions of landscape and the daily life of the poor at the time are rich enough to feed the senses. The author weaves this vast canvas of changing culture into the personal stories of these women, and in the process transports us to a distant land, a distant time—and deep into the story of people we sympathize with and care about.
—Linda White, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Sharratt successfully combines excellent historical detail, drama, and emotional accounts that blend beautifully into a vibrant story. Perfectly plotted, impressive, and full of tension, this is most assuredly a bewitching tale. Highly recommended.
—Rebecca Roberts, Historical Novels Review, Editor's Choice Pick

A breathless page turner … Daughters of the Witching Hill leads to any exciting conclusion, of course—the gory, dramatic horror of the witch trial—but when readers close the book, that's amazingly not the part we remember. We come to know these 'witches' as people, skilled in herbal or even magical healing, yes, but also in demanding respect from others, and of themselves.
—Kristen Thiel, Rain Taxi

Every time I picked this book up I was immediately transported to Pendle Forest and completely absorbed in the story of these women. . . . I encourage all to read this enchanting story.
—Bookbrowse.com, Editor's Choice Pick

This book is a new approach to an old subject and will take you back to a time when innocence was lost because of fear, petty revenge and superstition. It will bewitch you.
—Mary Daugherty, The News-Enterprise

Daughters of the Witching Hill is very different for Sharratt, yet just as rich and compelling as this author’s previous works. Bess and her clan live and breathe on the pages of Sharratt’s book—at least for a while—and we come away from the experience with a fresh view of what might really have happened in Lancashire in 1612.
—Sienna Powers, January Magazine

This is first and foremost a story about strong women. . . . Mary Sharratt does a good job with the suspense built around the hunt and the minimal evidence needed to cry witch and hang a person at this time in history.
—Amy Gwiazdowski, Bookreporter.com

The so-called witches in Mary Sharratt's awe-ful novel—in which the reader is filled with awe at the courage of Mother Demdike and her family and neighbors—are cunning women who have the misfortune to live in the Protestant police state that we know as Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time, Daughters of the Witching Hill is a book you won't soon forget.
Barbara Ardinger, Feathered Quill Book Reviews

A fascinating tale. The story unfolds without melodrama and is therefore all the more powerful. Recommended for fans of Katherine Howe’s The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.
— Jamie Kallio, Library Journal (Starred Review)

The Pendle witches’ story, retold as a passionate saga of female friendship.
—Kirkus Reviews

Sharratt fills the book with fascinating accounts of rituals and magic practices, and her gift for the language of the era brings the narrative to life. Striking just the right balance between the demands of fact and the allure of a good story, she has produced a novel that’s both convincing and compelling. Daughters is—literally—a spellbinding book.
—Julie Hale, BookPage

What an original voice Mary Sharratt has. She brings a haunting, ancient story — part of the local legend and history of where she lives — into life with vivid characters and a gripping plot. Old, lost, long-ago ways are made real.
—Karleen Koen, author of Through a Glass Darkly and Dark Angels

Sharratt’s witches break the stereotype of "crones and sirens" and are vividly rendered. An authentic portrait of a dangerous time.
—Margaret George, author of Helen of Troy

Like a darker early Alice Hoffman.
—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Daughters of the Witching Hill cast a powerful spell over me as I sped through the pages, utterly transfixed. Readers are hereby warned of their own potential enchantment by this bewitching tale.
—Katharine Weber, author of True Confections and Triangle

I have rarely read a historical novel that captures the voices of another time as gracefully and fully as Mary Sharratt does in Daughters of the Witching Hill. In beautifully evocative prose, she calls up the beauties and joys of their world as fully as she details the cruelties and greed that destroyed it — and them.
—Margaret Frazer, author of the Sister Frevisse Mysteries and the Joliffe Player Mysteries

No one casts a spell like Mary Sharratt. I was enchanted by this wonderfully absorbing novel, fascinated by the very real yet magical world of the Pendle witches.
—Sandra Gulland, author of the Josephine B. Trilogy and Mistress of the Sun

Mary Sharatt’s Daughters of the Witching Hill is a powerful tale of the narrow gap between good and evil and how easily one can slip — or be pushed — into the abyss. Her portrayal of the complex pressures of poverty and social change on the wise women of Pendle Forest is compassionate and compelling.
—Judith Lindbergh, author of The Thrall’s Tale

A remarkable story, powerful and compelling and ultimately heart-breaking.
—Sharon Kay Penman, author of The Sunne in Splendour, Here Be Dragons, The Devil's Brood, and Time and Chance

The Vanishing Point

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An intelligent and gripping book that takes us to the New World of outcasts—indentured servants, mail-order brides, failed tobacco planters, slaves—rather than the more prosperous early Americans we know from conventional historical accounts. Mary Sharratt has a passion for her story, and it shows.
—Kathy Weissman, BookReporter.com

A 17th-century treasury of guilty pleasures … Without being trashy, Sharratt includes many of the guilty pleasures of romantic fiction: young women with burgeoning sexuality, time-appropriate ways for gathering berries, planting herbs, skinning animals and preparing meals. Most important, she knows how to string the reader briskly along to the novel's ultimate revelations.
—Cherie Parker, Minneapolis Star Tribune

A solid story … easy to read and hard to put down.
—Gwyneth J. Saunders, Maryland Independent

Her finely crafted, convincing novel is a captivating story full of dark suspense.
—Sherri Wright, Owner, Book Crossing Bookstore, Baltimore, Maryland

The Vanishing Point is a well-researched historical novel with complex characters and enough plot twists and surprises to keep readers guessing and second-guessing right up to the end … The rich period detail truly gives the flavor of life in 17th century Maryland.
—Sharon Parker, Twin Cities Daily Planet

An authentically detailed period piece with elements of gothic suspense thrown in for good measure.
—Margaret Flanagan, Booklist

This is exactly what historical fiction should be: full of vivid, vibrant characters who make you feel what they feel, hope what they hope and suffer what they suffer. This tale of two very different sisters who make their fortunes in the New World pulled me right in and made me lose all sense of time and place. Sensitively written and beautifully rendered, Sharratt has produced a true keeper.
—Sarah Weinman, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind: Picks of the Week

Mary Sharratt's new novel, The Vanishing Point, is a page-turner, a mystery, a quietly feminist tale, and a richly researched historical novel with ever-unfolding plot twists … The plot questions will keep you reading. But Sharratt's underlying message will keep you thinking long after the questions are answered.
—Laurie Hertzel, Minnesota Magazine

Sharratt's description of frontier life is so sharp, you can feel and taste it with the characters. The story alternates between each sister's tale, and the two vibrant women are sympathetic and interesting.
—Diana Scott Lewis, Historical Novels Review

This well-researched book will provide readers with an insight into life on the wild edges of the fledgling nation that became the USA, through the eyes of a tough and determined young woman. It's a woman's book in the best sense of that term, but not 'chick lit' by any definition.
—Karen Treanor, New Mystery Reader

The Vanishing Point is a truly captivating novel. It wears its history lightly, in the best tradition of great historical fiction. Mary Sharratt has a marvelously light touch, never requiring the reader to stop and admire her research, yet, because she also has a sure hand as a storyteller, she keeps the reader completely engaged, from first page to last.
—Katharine Weber, author of Triangle; The Little Women; The Music Lesson; Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

The Vanishing Point sings! May, Hannah, Adele and Gabriel stole my heart. Mary Sharratt's details of seventeenth century economics and medicine enhance her story, yet she never loses sight of love, hope, loss and regret. Her characters adjust to a new country and a continually changing view of one another and the past — a theme that resonates into our times. An enthralling and unusual tale from a compassionate writer.
—Shauna Singh Baldwin, author of What The Body Remembers and Winner of the Commonwealth Prize

Mary Sharratt's The Vanishing Point is her best novel yet, a passionate, spell-casting story; the world she creates is vivid, intimate, evocative. The harrowing narrative held me captive as secrets were slowly revealed. I was unable to put this book down.
—Sandra Gulland, author of the Josephine B. Trilogy and Mistress of the Sun

Set in seventeenth-century Maryland, THE VANISHING POINT is a novel of dark suspense, love, and betrayal featuring two star-crossed sisters, one lost and the other searching.

In the tradition of Philippa Gregory's smart, transporting fiction comes this tale of two independent, spirited sisters. Bright and inquisitive, Hannah Powers was raised by a father who treated her as if she were his son. While her beautiful and reckless sister, May, pushes the limits of propriety in their small English town, Hannah harbors her own secret: their father has trained her in the physician's art, an education forbidden to women. But Hannah's secret serves her well when she journeys to colonial Maryland to reunite with May, who has been married off to a distant cousin after her sexual misadventures ruined her marriage prospects in England.

As Hannah searches for May, who has disappeared, she finds herself falling in love with her brother-in-law, even as she struggles to believe his claim that her sister died in childbirth. Alone in a wild, uncultivated land where the old rules no longer apply, Hannah is freed from the constraints of the society that judged both her and May as dangerous — too smart, too fearless, and too hungry for life. But Hannah is also plagued by doubt, as her quest for answers to May's fate grows ever more disturbing and tangled.

The Vanishing Point is a marvelously assured period piece. Sharratt's ten years of research on everything from seventeeth-century pharmacology to pioneer cooking are evident on each page. In this gripping, evocative novel, rich in texture and authenticity, Sharratt brings to vivid life a distant world that feels as immediate and relevant as our own.

The Vanishing Point will be published as a Mariner Original in June, 2006, and has sold to Editorial Suma de Letras (World Spanish rights), btb Verlag (German translation rights), and Objetiva (Brazilian/Portugese language rights)

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About the Book
Excerpt

Buy the Book:
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NOW IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

About the Book
Excerpt
Reviews
Discussion Guide

Buy the Book
Amazon
Amazon U.K.
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
IndieBound
Powells

Sharratt's luminous second novel captivates the reader from the first page with an intriguing tale of three strong women who struggle against the repression of both the town and the times they live in.
—Deborah Donovan, BookPage

Entertaining go-girl fiction, sort of a less sentimental Fried Green Tomatoes.
—Christina Schmitt, City Pages

It's a good read and one which encapsulates a world which has gone forever, thank goodness.
—Mary Vernon, Townsville Bulletin, Australia

Compelling reading.
—Marie Bruni, The Daily Star, Oneonta, New York

Once again, Sharratt takes on difficult subjects—class differences, violence against women, small town conformity—and places them in a bygone era to tell a story that is powerful and haunting.
—Book Sense: Barb Wieser, Amazon Bookstore Cooperative, Minneapolis

Congenial to modern tastes in its feminist sensibilities, the novel is a good old-fashioned story of perfidy, villainous conduct, and small-town censoriousness against which three heroines, each doughty in her own way, strike back.
—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe

This second book from Sharratt is both lively and memorable, and also a reminder that it is possible to craft a good, old-fashioned novel from the most basic elements … a well-researched and entertaining period piece.
—Susan Coll, Washington Post Book World

In her elegant and detailed writing, Sharratt builds her Minerva as a place the reader can touch and smell. The Real Minerva is ultimately an engrossing tale … a good story that many readers should enjoy.
—Cherie Park, Minneapolis Star Tribune

A 1920s farm girl finds her warrior strength.
—Mary Ann Grossmann, St. Paul Pioneer Press

Though it's set in 1920s Minnesota (a world which Sharratt brings to life in vivid detail), this novel reverberates into our 21st-century lives.
—David Abrams, January Magazine

A heartfelt tale of female empowerment … [the] emotionally satisfying, old-fashioned happy ending should be a crowd pleaser.
—Publisher's Weekly

This novel is a paean to the bond between mothers and daughters, actual and otherwise … Having woven fairytales into Summit Avenue (2000), Sharratt now threads The Odyssey through this engrossing tale.
—Booklist

The Real Minerva is an amazing novel: mythic and mysterious, sensual and compelling, deliciously suspenseful.
—Sandra Gulland, author of the Josephine B. Trilogy and Mistress of the Sun

Is it possible to leave your past behind and become someone wholly different? This strongly plotted, fiercely imagined novel centers on a small town's secrets and the harrowing choices that three women will be forced to make as each struggles to pursue her dreams in a society where restraints far outweigh liberties.

Minerva, Minnesota, in 1923 is the picture of Willa Cather-like gentility. It's also a small town of limited opportunity, a place where the status quo is firmly entrenched and rigidly enforced. The troubled relationship between young Penny and her mother, Barbara, is getting worse. Disturbed by her mother's affair with the man they clean house for, Penny answers an ad to work for Cora Egan, a Chicago society woman who has fled a bad marriage and intends to raise her child alone on her grandfather's farm. Cora's situation shocks Minerva, but over time her presence opens a door in Penny's and Barbara's lives. Through these women, Mary Sharratt considers what it takes to reinvent the self, to claim one's true identity.

The exquisite historical detail and emotional resonance of The Real Minerva will appeal to readers who enjoy classic storytelling with a modern spirit.

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		Summit Avenue About the Book Excerpt Reviews Discussion Guide Buy the Book Order a signed first edition from the author via email

Set in Minnesota during the years 1911-1919, Mary Sharratt's acclaimed debut novel is the story of a young German immigrant who translates fairy tales for an enigmatic older woman. The heroine is drawn into a mysterious new world as the tales assume a reality of their own, mirroring her awakening in a time of alienation and war.

Now in its third printing, Summit Avenue is one the publisher's all time best-sellers. A book discussion group favorite, Summit Avenue was a Booksense 76 Pick and was nominated for the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award.

Author photo at top, © Dirk Vietzke.

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