The Connecticut Witch Trials
Trilogy
by Author Beth M. Caruso
The Salty Rose
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A fascinating historical novel about an insider’s view of how New Amsterdam became New York.
Marie du Trieux, a tavern keeper with a salty tongue and a heart of gold, struggles as she navigates love and loss, Native Wars, and possible banishment by authorities in the unruly trading port of New Amsterdam, an outpost of the Dutch West India Company.
In New England, John Tinker, a merchant and assistant to a renowned alchemist and eventual leader of Connecticut Colony, must come to terms with a family tragedy of dark proportions, all the while supporting his mentor’s secret quest to find the Northwest Passage, a desired trading route purposed to mystically unite the East with the West.
As the lives of Marie and John become intertwined through friendship and trade, a search for justice of a Dutch woman accused of witchcraft in Hartford put them on a collision course affecting not only their own destinies, but also the fate of colonial America.
Awards:
2020 Genre Fiction Winner, IPNE (Independent Publishers of New England) Book Awards
Reviews:
5 stars
The Salty Rose: Alchemists, Witches & a Tapper in New Amsterdam by Beth M Caruso is a historical fiction novel that follows the lives of Marie du Trieux and John Tinker in the colonies. Marie narrates the novel in the first person and in a format where she is recalling her life. Marie settled into a new world hardly fit for a young girl but with grit and determination, she is able to make a life for herself with The Salty Rose, her own tavern, despite a virtually constant onslaught of difficulty, combat, uncertainty, sexism, and heartbreaking losses. Meanwhile, John is an equally forward-thinking soul and trader in New England who is on his own tenuous course as he navigates the society he finds himself frequently at odds with as well as a path to a place previously inaccessible.
The Salty Rose is a really well researched and composed piece of historical fiction and Beth M Caruso brings life in the colonies to the forefront with vivid detail. Marie is a relatable character with admiral spirit and her friendship with John is brilliantly plotted despite the day and age being one in which friendship between the two would be viewed with suspicion. Caruso does not leave out the more tragic pieces of history wherein Marie is a slave owner and even though she does not subscribe to the harsh and dehumanizing aspects of an abhorrent practice, she is nonetheless complicit. She also finds herself as a tavern owner at odds with the Native population who are overwhelmed by access to spirits, which Marie provides, and she is defiant in her position and the right to sell. Yes, the book dances between Marie and John but, for me, it is the story's protagonist and her authenticity - even when presented with traits that in hindsight are difficult to stomach - that resonate the strongest and I am grateful to have read this book.
—Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
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"Caruso once again brings colonial history to life in this expertly researched, colorful and captivating novel."
—Susanne Aspley, McKnight Award Winning Author
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"The Salty Rose is a perfect sequel to One of Windsor. In The Salty Rose, Ms. Caruso carried forward historic figures and characters from her previous book and added numerous believable and engaging new characters along with known figures from history. The Salty Rose is characterized by the same dedication to research of historic events and culture of early life in the colonies demonstrated by Ms. Caruso in One of Windsor."
—Lois Arsenault, lover of historical fiction and author
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