Ann Putnam is the other narrator and her story is from the past.

Colleen Rowley tells the present day story and gives us eye-witness accounts of the girls falling ill and how the school is reacting.

The story alternates between two narrators. She even sets the story in the town of Danvers, MA, which used to be called Salem. Being a direct descendent of women accused of being witches during the Salem Witch Trials back in the late 1600s, she expertly weaves her tale between the two time periods. What I found, though, as I listened to this story, is that Katherine Howe takes a completely different approach to this mass hysteria. I had heard that both authors used the same ripped-from-the-headlines event as the basis for their novels – the mysterious twitching girls of Le Roy, NY. My thoughts: I typically don’t read YA books, but I picked this one up after hearing it compared to Megan Abbott’s The Fever, which I really enjoyed. Novel, a chilling mystery that raises the question, what’s really With her signature wit and passion, New York Timesīestselling author Katherine Howe delivers an exciting and suspenseful Inspired by true events-from seventeenth-century colonial life to the halls of a modern-day high school- Conversion casts a spell. Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarlyīizarre epidemic three centuries ago . . . Girls faking? Only Colleen-who’s been reading The Crucible forĮxtra credit-comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once The media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles toįind something, or someone, to blame. Joan’sīuzzes with rumor rumor blossoms into full-blown panic. Symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. Spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and Uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. School’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into College applications, the battle for valedictorian, decipheringīoys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressureĬooker. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane comes a chilling mystery- Prep meets The Crucible.

Conversion by Katherine Howe