The Watertown Chronicles

When his father dies and his older brother inherits the family’s homestead in Stogumber, England, William becomes an easy target for recruiters of skilled workers for the newly chartered Massachusetts Bay Colony in America. A devout Puritan (and political outcast in 1640) of marriageable age but landless, he faces conscription for a looming civil war.

Mary is the second daughter of the Sherborn family. Gifted with clairvoyance, a strain that runs through her Celtic ancestors, Mary is born in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded by Puritans in 1630, tolerates no other faith or people. After the magistrates execute the first midwife for witchcraft, Mary dares not admit her visions to anyone, even to herself while she conforms to the Puritan faith. Marrying both wealth and power, she struggles to maintain the respect of her community while concealing her visions.

Suzanne Morse, a midwife in Watertown, moves to a remote frontier town with her husband and two children in 1666. A hands-on, practical woman who needs people, she bonds with the first two women she meets. The minister's new wife, Abigail Willard, wants to learn Suzanne's trade. At the same time, Dancing Light, a medicine woman across the river, calls her to heal her sister, dying of a white man's disease, with white medicine. In no time, Suzanne becomes known as an effective healer among Groton settlers. However, her friendship with Dancing Light arouses the town's approbation.