SALEM'S CHILDREN

by Mary Leader ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 1979

A reincarnation novel of agonizing boredom by the author of Triad (1973). Leader has clearly done some homework about the culture of witchcraft in old Salem, but her mixture of research and romantic suspense is hysterically pitched and not believable for a millisecond. Welsh-named heroine Submit Llewellyn and her children, baby Cariad (Welsh for love) and teenager Rowan, return from the east to small-town Wisconsin after Submit's husband, a Broadway actor, dies in an accident (not to mention cocaine addiction) while rehearsing for a new musical called Lucifer. Now Rowan holds daddy's death against Submit, who is having plenty of mental problems of her own on her return to Peacehaven, for this is the town that was first settled by those accused of witchcraft in old Salem, Mass., when they fled the trials. The past is alive and squirming in Peacehaven, with all sorts of foul Satanist practices taking place and with Submit herself locked into reincarnation fugues where she is reliving a demonic earlier life. Hysteria mounts in Peacehaven and the only way out seems to be exorcism--by way of a witchcraft-trials pageant written by Submit's new love Greg. . . . Claptrap packaged as a research novel.

Pub Date: March 28, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION