Watermark is excited to welcome Children's and Historical Fiction author Lois Ruby a longtime author and former Kansas resident known for her novels Steal Away Home and The Secret of Laurel Oaks. She will be at Watermark celebrating her latest book Gallows Hill which is a historical fiction based in the colonial United States. It follows a new immigrant Thomas who arrives in Salem Massachusetts as an outcast from the Puritan community of Salem. Patience is a Puritan who is having difficulty following the proper Puritan life. When her daughter Abigail and other Salem girls start saying they are experiencing feelings of being bewitched by the devil and start accusing fellow villagers of witches it is up to Thomas and Patience to uncover the truth about what is really happening in their village. Lois will be at Watermark Books and Cafe on Saturday, September 30th at 1:30 pm. She will be here doing a discussion about the book, a Q&A with the audience, and a book signing after. We hope to see you there and let your friends and family know. You can RSVP on Eventbrite using the button below. While it is not required to RSVP for this event, RSVPing helps give us an idea of how many will attend to prepare the proper seating arrangement.
About the Book:
Salem, Massachusetts - 1692
Thomas is marked as an outcast the moment he steps off the ship from England. As a Quaker, he's outnumbered and distrusted by Salem's Puritans. And as an orphan without any useful skills, he has nowhere to live and no way to earn his keep. In a stroke of luck--perhaps good, perhaps not--he's taken in by the aged widow Prudence Blevins, who's rumored to be a witch.
Patience has tried all her life to be a good Puritan--obedient to God and to her elders--and all her life, she has come up short. But her orderly world is upended when her younger sister, Abigail, falls victim to a mysterious affliction. The same torments have stricken other Salem girls, who claim they're being bewitched by servants of the Devil. Soon the girls, including Abigail, begin accusing neighbors of witchcraft.
As the community becomes consumed by suspicion and fear, Thomas and Patience search for the truth. To protect those they care about, they will have to question everything they think they know: their faiths, their loyalties, and their places in Salem.
About the Author:
Lois Ruby is a former librarian and the author of twenty-two books for young readers. She also writes some historical fiction. She divides her time between family, community social action, research, writing, and visiting schools to energize young people about the ideas in books and the joys of reading. Ruby is a former resident of Wichita, Kansas, just two hours south of Lawrence, Kansas.
