Hester

by Laurie Lico Albanese

Who might have been the inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter? And what would be the real story, told from her viewpoint? Albanese weaves in the history of witchcraft—both here and in Scotland—the real reasons why women were often accused of it, and how an underground railroad existed even in that time period to rescue women and slaves.