The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

I really wanted to read this book when I first saw it at the book store. It has such a great cover and a cool title. Plus, one of the tasks for the Summer Book Challenge is to read a book based solely on its cover. Here is a description of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane from Amazon:

Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie's grandmother's abandoned home near Salem, she can't refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest--to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.

As the pieces of Deliverance's harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem's dark past then she could have ever imagined.

I was so excited when I finally got this book from the library. I waited for about a month for it. It definitely was not worth the wait. I'm so disappointed. I found the book to be mildly interesting, but I couldn't stand the main character, Connie. She was so dumb! There were times when I was thinking to myself, How did this girl even get her graduate degree? The author also used the word "idiosyncratic" way too many times. (Think "chagrin" in the Twilight series.) I also couldn't believe that the author wrote "should of" instead of "should have." Granted, it was in dialogue, but still! That is just not OK. I could see maybe using "should've" since it was dialogue but not "should of." That's a big pet peeve of mine. Anyway, I thought the historical parts of the book were very interesting, but the rest was pretty pointless. So disappointing.

2 out of 5 stars