JULIA PARK TRACEY’S HISTORICAL FICTION, SILENCE: A NOVEL, WEAVES A TALE OF LOSS AND REDEMPTION IN A WITCHY PURITAN TALE

Novel Based on the Author’s Own Ancestor, Her Seventh Great-Grandmother Silence Marsh, Discovered During Family History Research on Ancestry.com

GRASS VALLEY, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, August 26, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Silence: A Novel by Julia Park Tracey delivers a bewitching tale of loss and redemption, based on her own ancestor, her seventh great-grandmother Silence Marsh. The novel comes out Tuesday, September 24, 2024, and will be available as a paperback and e-book from Sibylline Press; and will be issued as an audiobook from Tantor Media.

After three grievous losses, Puritan woman Silence Marsh dares to question God aloud in the church, and that blasphemy lands her in trouble—she is silenced for a year by the powers that be. Broken in heart and spirit, Silence learns to mime and sign, but it isn’t until a new Boston doctor comes to her backward Cape Cod village that she begins to hope again. Rather than treating Silence with bleeding or leeches, Dr. Greenleaf prescribes fresh air, St. John’s Wort, long walks—and reading. Silence has half a hope of getting through her year of punishment when the cry of witchcraft poisons the village. Colonial Massachusetts is still reeling from the Salem Witch Trials just 20 years before. Now, after they have demanded her silence, she is called to witness at a witchcraft trial—or be accused herself.

Park Tracey will celebrate the launch of Silence: A Novel, with a “Retracing the Witch Trials” book tour that also retraces some of Silence’s old haunts. For the days leading up to All Hallows Day (October 20-31), Park Tracey will visit bookstores, libraries, museums, historical societies, and festivals throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. The tour kicks off with a launch event in Hingham’s Old Ship Church. This church is the first setting in her novel, in which the Puritan Church condemns our protagonist Silence Marsh to a year of silence for her questioning of God. Park Tracey will also be live streaming from Salem during the Witchcraft Fair, and from historical sites such as the Massachusetts cemetery where her seventh great-grandmother Silence is buried. Park Tracey’s book talks will capture the witch trials, the handicrafts of the era, the constraints on women, and the way women found their voices despite those constraints, as well as the Ancestry.com research behind her highly acclaimed novel.

About the Author: Julia Park Tracey is an award-winning journalist, essayist and poet. Her ancestors and their stories have given her a trail to follow from New York and New England to the Deep South and the Pacific Coast. Her latest historical fiction, Silence, received a starred Kirkus review as follows: “Tracey, the author of The Bereaved (2023), is a remarkable writer, and this book is another triumph. A historically astute and compelling must-read.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review. Her previous novel, The Bereaved, the story of her great, great grandmother’s loss of her children to the Orphan Train was named by Kirkus Reviews in the top 100 indie books published in 2023. A bird nerd, apiarist, cat lady, and chaser of stories, Julia lives in the California foothills in an 1800s Victorian that she painstakingly refurbished.

About Sibylline Press:
Sibylline Press publishes the brilliant work of women authors over 50, exclusively. It is distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West. Sibylline Press takes its name from the Sibylline Books, the ancient writings of wise older women, the Sibyls. More at www.sibyllinepress.com; and follow us on FB and IG @sibyllinepress

Please contact Jenny McIntosh for book and tour interviews, Halloween-theme round-up stories + review copy requests

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