Since a very young age Elsabeth James has known she had powers – sometimes hearing people’s thought, seeing their memories. In 1681 England this is a dangerous thing – that’s why her father is working hard to study her and her sister who also has gifts and put scientific facts behind it. He wants his daughters to be safe.
Elsabeth primarily wants to learn how to control and increase her abilities. Her goal is to be an independent woman, perhaps paid for her gifts by individual clients. She wants to be financially self-sustaining and not have to worry about marriage.
When her father decides to take them to America, however, tragedy strikes. Unfortunate events lead Elsabeth to be washed ashore in South Carolina where she falls in love with a young man who works on the plantation as a slave.
But their relationship catches the attention of the wrong people, and against her will Elsabeth is sent to Salem, Massachusetts to be a servant.
And accusations of witchcraft are beginning to be flung…
I definitely found Suzanne Weyn’s Distant Waves to be a memorable, creepy yet sensitive book last year – which is why the idea of Invisible World appealed to me. Again she is weaving a fictional, paranormal-edged tale with a historical event.
The Salem Witch Trials always fascinated me and disturbed me since I first learned of them. Sadly, though, Invisible World spends very little time on that subject. Elsabeth’s character and her supernatural powers make for an interesting story but surprisingly it didn’t meld well with the Salem Witch Trials. In this case, history itself is far more dark and scary in its realistic truth than in the embellished, fictional manner it’s presented here, in my opinion.
Invisible World is in no way a bad book. I read it quick, it flew by, and wasn’t boring. It just felt a bit all over the place and was overall a disappointment to what I was expecting.
If you’re looking for YA novels that focus more of the Salem Witch Trials, and admittedly do not delve into the supernatural, I would personally recommend Beyond the Burning Time by Kathryn Lasky, The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare, and A Break With Charity by Ann Rinaldi.
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