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Published Jul 2010
416 pages
Genre: Poetry & Novels in Verse
Publication Information
What started out as girls' games became a witch hunt. Wicked Girls is a fictionalized account of the Salem witch trials told from the perspectives of three of the real young women living in Salem in 1692.
Ann Putnam Jr. plays the queen bee. When her father suggests that a spate of illnesses within the village is the result of witchcraft, Ann grasps her opportunity. She puts in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of the people around her forever.
Mercy Lewis, the beautiful servant in Ann's house, inspires adulation in some and envy in others. With a troubled past, she seizes her only chance at safety.
Margaret Walcott, Ann's cousin, is desperately in love and consumed with fiery jealousy. She is torn between staying loyal to her friends and pursuing the life she dreams of with her betrothed.
With new accusations mounting daily against the men and women of the community, the girls will have to decide: Is it too late to tell the truth?
A Printz Honor winner for Your Own, Stephanie Hemphill uses evocative verse to weave a nuanced portrait of one of the most chilling and fascinating times in our nation's history.
"Starred Review. The expressive writing, masterful tension, and parallels to modern group dynamics create a powerful and relevant page-turner." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Teens may need some encouragement to pick up this book, but it deserves a place in most high school collections." - School Library Journal
"Starred Review. [This will] find readers outside the classroom, who will savor the accessible, unsettling, piercing lines that connect past and present with timeless conflicts and truths. Grades 7-12." - Booklist
This information about Wicked Girls was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Stephanie Hemphill is the author of Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath and Things Left Unsaid: A Novel in Poems. Your Own, Sylvia was a 2008 Michael L. Printz Honor Book. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.
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