Burial Rites

Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent, 314 pages

This was a well-written, well-researched, beautiful book about a nineteenth-century execution in Iceland.  Agnes is sentenced to wait out her last months before being executed for murder, on a farm where the farmer's family comes to hear her side of the story and see that nothing is quite so black and white.  This is an excellent book for book clubs- there is alot to discuss and alot to learn about another country and another time.

The Traitor's Wife

The Traitor's Wife, by Kathleen Kent, 352 pages

Martha Allen is a no-nonsense woman living in colonial Massachusetts.  She suffers no fools and has not been able to find a husband for it.  While assisting her cousin during the term of her pregnancy, she meets a man with a mysterious past, named Thomas, and feelings begin to blossom.  But Thomas' past is sailing across the ocean with murder in mind, and Martha and Thomas' future is uncertain.

...that is, unless you read the book to which this is a prequel, The Heretic's Daughter.  I had not, so I did not know how it would end.  The journey to the ending, though, is the interesting part.  This brought up a lot of interesting talk about Oliver Cromwell and Restoration England in our book discussion.