Give audiobooks, support local bookstores!
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Bookseller Created
QRB Staff Picks
Give audiobooks, support local bookstores!
Start gifting
Bookseller pick
Send as gift
Add to Wish List
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Shop small, give big!
With credit bundles, you choose the number of credits and your recipient picks their audiobooks—all in support of local bookstores.
Start gifting
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Sign up todayThe Once & Future Witch Hunt
A Descendant's Reckoning from Salem to the Present
Narrator
Rebecca Gallagher
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn more
Length
11 hours 25 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“In 1692, Salem woman Martha Carrier was labeled the 'Queen of Hell' and hanged for witchcraft after she refused to confess. In this thoroughly-researched investigation, Martha's nine times great-granddaughter endeavors not only to learn about her ill-fated ancestor but to understand the convergence of social, religious, and economic factors that led to the Salem witch trials. Drawing on the few existing records about Martha (mostly court transcripts), Markham-Cantor alternates non-fiction chapters with a largely fictionalized telling of Martha's story, bringing to vivid life a woman about whom very little is known. The book also explores the broader context of witch hunts worldwide, and in a moving final chapter Markham-Cantor shares the names and stories of people - mostly women, the poor, and others on the margins—who have been demonized and condemned as witches as recently as 2023.”
— Lily • Quail Ridge Books
Summary
As the descendant of Martha Carrier, an accused woman executed at Salem, Alice Markham-Cantor presents a riveting story that spans centuries and brings the historical significance of the witch trials into modern times.
Extensively researched and told through alternating fiction and nonfiction chapters, this book illuminates a shocking truth: contrary to popular opinion, the witch hunts never ended. Alice shares research that suggests tens of thousands of witch hunt–related deaths have happened all over the world in the last thirty years. The Once & Future Witch Hunt also features tantalizing glimpses into Alice's ancestors' lives and reimagines the trials through fact-based fiction.
At the intersection of witchcraft, feminism, anthropology, and history, this book gives us as authentic a retelling as may ever be possible while trying to answer that single, irrepressible question: how could this have happened?
