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Revenants : a dream of New England
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2011
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*Starred Review* This atmospheric novel is set in 1689, 14 years after King Philip's War. That bloody conflict pitted Native Americans against English colonists. Now in the town of Cold Marsh, two young women have gone missing. The stern, ancient minister warns the townspeople that the disappearances are the work of the devil. When a third young woman vanishes, the men organize a search party, with the woman's fiancé among them, and set out into the woods. But what they find there evidence of a massacre against Native Americans that the older men had participated in totally unnerves them, unleashing a torrent of guilt and sorrow that the repressed men can barely acknowledge, for they are equally terrified of forest and town, the world without and the world within. Both of those worlds are eloquently captured by Mills in this stunning debut novel. Readers are swept into the towering forests of colonial New England right along with the settlers as Mills calls up both the majesty of stately oaks and chestnuts and mist-laden scenes of terrified Native American women and children who were slaughtered where they stood. Otherworldly fiction from a promising new talent.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2010 Booklist
Summary
The year is 1689. Situated on the northern boundary of the Massachusetts Bay colony, the town of Cold Marsh is a place of secrets, a village characterized by repression and guilt. Fourteen years have passed since the outbreak of King Philip's War and darkness has come to the Cold Marsh. Two of the town's young women have vanished under mysterious circumstances, and the country seethes with rumors of witchcraft and devilry. Even their God has abandoned them. When a third young woman disappears, the men of the village determine to leave the safety of the village and enter the other world of the woods in search of her. Revenants is a lyrical evocation of the colonial landscape, a poetic meditation on the hills and wilds of that vanished country. It also brings back to life, with breathing intimacy, the inner landscape of sombre repression known to the settlers of New England.
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