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Captivity

by Deborah Noyes (Goodreads Author)

3.08 of 5 stars 3.08 · rating details · 88 ratings · 47 reviews

This masterful historical novel by Deborah Noyes, the lauded author of Angel & Apostle, The Ghosts of Kerfol, and Encyclopedia of the End (starred PW) is two stories:
The first centers upon the strange, true tale of the Fox Sisters, the enigmatic family of young women who, in upstate New York in 1848, proclaimed that they could converse with the dead. Doing so, they unw...more

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published July 6th 2010 by Unbridled Books (first published January 1st 2010)

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Feb 25, 2011 Andrea Love rated it 3 of 5 stars

Received for review from netgalley.
This is an interesting read, well written, and the characters are believable and engaging. The juxtaposition of the character's lives illustrates the adage, 'the more things change, the more they stay the same.'
A novel exploring the many ways in which humanity is trapped by its very nature. Full of mystery, loss and (the possible) supernatural. The novel follows two women trapped by their own lives and ambitions, one by the pursuit of fame and fortune, and anot...more

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Jul 07, 2010 Christine rated it 5 of 5 stars

The most interesting novels, those considered to be classics, are the ones whose stories stay with you, after the last page has been turned. "Captivity" is certainly in the tradition of the classics, in the very best sense of the word. Its multilayered story and characters are like petals of a flower, opening slowly to reveal something beautiful, both as you read and long after you’ve finished as well.

The story is the intersection of two imagined lives. The first belongs to a recluse, Clara Gill...more The most interesting novels, those considered to be classics, are the ones whose stories stay with you, after the last page has been turned. "Captivity" is certainly in the tradition of the classics, in the very best sense of the word. Its multilayered story and characters are like petals of a flower, opening slowly to reveal something beautiful, both as you read and long after you’ve finished as well.

The story is the intersection of two imagined lives. The first belongs to a recluse, Clara Gill, a woman haunted by love and loss, who has withdrawn from society completely. The other is of a younger woman, Maggie Fox (based in part on the life of a real person from American history), one of two sisters who could “communicate with the dead.” The rapping of the dead experienced by the Fox sisters and demonstrated in lecture halls and at private séances across the United States eventually gave birth to the American Spiritualist movement in 1848.

Set in upstate New York, the intersection of Clara and Maggie’s lives brings both of these women’s stories to the fore. Ironically, they had much in common, although Clara is a skeptic of the Fox sisters and their activities. In fact, both women are captives of a society that limits them and has expectations of how they should conduct themselves that lie in direct opposition to the strengths of each.

Not only does author Deborah Noyes bring to "Captivity" wonderful skills as a lyrical writer (in which her phrasing seems to capture exactly the emotional landscape of the moment), but she also knows how to mete out her storytelling, letting her readers eke out the stories of these two disparate lives, their challenges, and their developing friendship in the most unlikely of circumstances. She allows each woman’s vulnerability and the impossible societal barriers each faces to show, slowly and carefully, in a way that builds trust and understanding between character and reader. Her descriptive powers are amazing, lending an insight into the essence of each character you are unlikely to find in most modern novels.

While "Captivity" is a historical novel, and some of the challenges that face each woman are the result of society’s dictates at the time, the novel never feels stuffy or heavy, let alone dull. Instead, Noyes is able to draw her readers in, engaging them in the lives of her characters, and allowing them to build understanding and hope as the story develops. This is a novel that readers will not want to end, but when it does, readers will know they have encountered something very special indeed.(less)

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Jun 03, 2010 Nicola rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, own

Reason for Reading: The Victorian era is my favourite time period to read about and I always find the Spiritualist movement fascinating, in that famous, intelligent people were some of the most hardy believers.

Set in the 1830s to 1850, this is a tale of two stories. First is based on the true life story of The Fox Sisters who could talk to the dead through rappings and virtually were the beginning of the entire Spiritualist movement. Secondly, is the story of Clara, 40 or close to, spinster who...more Reason for Reading: The Victorian era is my favourite time period to read about and I always find the Spiritualist movement fascinating, in that famous, intelligent people were some of the most hardy believers.

Set in the 1830s to 1850, this is a tale of two stories. First is based on the true life story of The Fox Sisters who could talk to the dead through rappings and virtually were the beginning of the entire Spiritualist movement. Secondly, is the story of Clara, 40 or close to, spinster who lives with her aging father. She has made herself reclusive for many years after the scandalous ending to a short but passionate affair of the heart. The main character from each story eventually meet but the point of view continues to switch back and forth from one person's tale to the other's.

I had a hard time getting into this one. I struggled through the first hundred pages not because they were hard to read but because I found the Fox sisters devoid of character. There are three of them. Alice, the youngest, starts out as a main character but eventually drifts to the background and is not ever given any personality for the reader to hold any opinion of her whatsoever. Alice is replaced by the eldest sister, Leah, who is the stereotypical mean, bossy, all business older sister and while we are given an outline of who she is, that is all the reader has to go by and no personality shows through that one doesn't feel for her either good or bad. The sister who is given the protagonist's part is middle sister, Maggie, and it takes an awful long time for her character's development to attain the point of having her own personality. Thus making those first pages hard for me to get through.

On the other hand, I was taken with Clara's story right away. She is a woman "of certain age" whose father, after many years of it being just the two of them, has started to bring round a widow who is obviously insinuating herself into her father's graces and trying to interfere in Clara's solitary, reclusive lifestyle. Clara goes back to the 1830s and slowly tells the story of her first (and only) love, the terrible tragedy and why she has ended up stowed away in her own room for so many years. This is what kept me reading for those first hundred pages.

Clara's story eventually meets the present and Maggie and Clara meet. At this point the two stories are still told separately but the characters from each story now overlap. It is also at this point the pace picked up for me. Maggie became an interesting person with depth. Not until the end of the story do we get to see the inside workings of Maggie's seances but we see the drain they have on her and both her feelings of pleasure and pressure at having to perform.

Ultimately though, this is a story of unrequited love and bitterness. Clara has three spinster aunt's who try desperately to marry her off, while she has no interest. Then once her affair of the heart has broken her they become nasty and mean-hearted to Clara for she had what they never did. Maggie also finds herself a man who is devoted to her but he is a gentleman and he wants her to choose between her scandalous lifestyle and him. Then there is Leah, in the background, who always has a different husband. These women think they need a man (or needed a specific man) to set them free but they all hold themselves captive by there own doings. A man's love will not set them free. They must set themselves free first, then they will be at liberty to love.

The second half of the book was really good, kept me turning the pages and I'm glad to have read the book. An interesting look inside one of the more unusual fads of the Victorian era.(less)

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May 08, 2010 Patty rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an amazing book.
It is a style of writing that I don't usually gravitate towards but I so loved Ms. Noyes first book, Angel and Apostle (review here) I knew I wanted to read her second. She has the ability to draw the reader into the time and place in such a way that you don't want to leave. The characters come alive. In the case of Captivity she has taken real people, the Fox sisters and entwined their tale with an invented family. At the center of that invention is a very sad recluse, C...more

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Feb 18, 2010 Vanessa James-brooks rated it 4 of 5 stars

" Captivity"
Written by Deborah Noyes
I found this book VERY interesting The Fox Sisters have a VERY talented Gift speaking to the dead. Pilgrims come far to camp out on their land to Pier into their windows to see what they do. The sisters have a ghost in their home they found out the name to be Mr. Splitfoot men start looking for the mans remains in the Cellar. I LOVE this book I love reading about the past and with this being set in the 1800's I enjoyed it immensely. Sorry I do not have much to...more
" Captivity"
Written by Deborah Noyes
I found this book VERY interesting The Fox Sisters have a VERY talented Gift speaking to the dead. Pilgrims come far to camp out on their land to Pier into their windows to see what they do. The sisters have a ghost in their home they found out the name to be Mr. Splitfoot men start looking for the mans remains in the Cellar. I LOVE this book I love reading about the past and with this being set in the 1800's I enjoyed it immensely. Sorry I do not have much to say on this book It is a FANTASTIC read out of 5 stars I give it 5 stars~! I really wanted to keep Reading and it was VERY fascinating..... Here is what the AUTHOR has written about the book.......

In March 1848, Maggie Fox and her younger sister rivet family and neighbors by claiming to be able to communicate with an unseen spirit in their house. When the girls reveal the identity of "Mr. Splitfoot," men with picks and shovels arrive to excavate the cellar in search of his remains.

As word of the Fox sisters' strange ability spreads far and wide, pilgrims arrive en masse, staking their tents in surrounding fields and peering in the family's windows. Invitations for "tea and table tilting" begin to arrive, and Maggie is subjected to rigorous demonstrations and humiliating investigative committees, to strangers who poke and prod but can't unpuzzle her. She takes refuge in an unlikely friendship with Clara Gill, a reclusive scientific artist. Exiled in Rochester in the wake of a London scandal, Clara is a skeptic of an altogether different sort -- one with reason to believe, though reason won't allow.

As Maggie's fame grows and a mania for contacting the dead sweeps the nation, her circle widens to include the likes of Horace Greeley, P.T. Barnum, and First Lady Pierce. She embarks on a turbulent affair with the equally famous polar explorer Elisha Kent Kane who challenges her to give up her "disgraceful" calling. Torn between love and independence, shame and duty, Maggie's ties to Clara become all the more binding. Against all odds, she takes it upon herself to help her friend confront a loss beyond reckoning . . .

Told from alternating points of view, Captivity explores an especially haunted moment in U.S. history when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead were flamboyantly lifted, when science and spirit were colorfully at odds, and when the wills of two very different women collided to work an ordinary miracle of devotion.(less)

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Jun 29, 2011 Anne Broyles rated it 4 of 5 stars

CAPTIVITY tells two stories: that of reclusive Clara Gill, a victim of her class, time and circumstances, and Maggie Fox, one of the sisters credited with founding American Spiritualism, who is captive to her celebrity and scheming older sister. Noyes' writing is beautiful, incandescent at times, and her descriptions of both the seen and unseen, internal and external worlds drew me in.

I loved Clara's story the most and would have liked more details of her inner life. I had a hard time believing...more

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May 15, 2011 Kathleen Valentine rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm giving this 4 stars instead of 3 because the writing is just beautiful and I'm always happy to encourage beautiful writing. The story is actually two story lines interwoven. One concerns the Fox sisters of Rochester, NY who were famed spiritualists in the mid 18th century. The other story is that of Clara Gill, a middle-aged spinster who, with her father, escaped to America after a sad, devastating experience of loving the wrong man which resulted in tragedy.

The story of Clara is beautiful,...more

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Jul 13, 2010 Brenda Rupp rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was totally interested in reading about the Fox sisters who were actually known in history for their communication with the dead. The other part of the story is of the skeptical Clara Gill a reclusive women who long ago had a scandalous loss of a beautiful young lover. She stays in her rooms and draws wildlife. She meets the Fox Sisters and really has a hard time believing they really can speak with the dead.

I had a hard time reading the book, it seemed long, very involved, some times giving t...more I was totally interested in reading about the Fox sisters who were actually known in history for their communication with the dead. The other part of the story is of the skeptical Clara Gill a reclusive women who long ago had a scandalous loss of a beautiful young lover. She stays in her rooms and draws wildlife. She meets the Fox Sisters and really has a hard time believing they really can speak with the dead.

I had a hard time reading the book, it seemed long, very involved, some times giving too much information or maybe not enough, I couldn't seem to figure out why I couldn't get into reading this book. The entire premise seemed one I would usually like to read about, but this book seemed to drag for me, I kept reading, I never gave up and when it ended I wasn't sure I got the answers I was seeking while reading the book. I was waiting for it to wrap everything up in a pretty bow at the end, and I turned the last page with questions still in my head.

What should have been a really great read for me, turned into something long and almost a chore to read for me. I never write bad reviews for authors, but I can not be less than honest, this book was not the book for me. Perhaps for someone else.

Here is the verbage from the cover of the book:
[close:] Looking out into a blue half-light, Maggie smears her hand across a pane twice and for a peculiar moment imagines her brother's trampled fields swarming with the dead. Spirits traipse here and there, tufts of light, farmers and farm wives, soldiers and babies and old ones-- some marked by their style of dress and half-familiar. They are made of light mostly, and ride lightly over the earth, treading no soil. And they are everywhere.

She blinks her eyes, suspecting her own mind has planted them like a strange crop in the field. The strangeness of seeing them is new, but Death itself is no stranger, surely. Not a day goes by in Arcadia when one among her community isn't lost to fire or drowning, typhus, malaria, yellow fever... a horse's kick, infection, suicide. These words are real and ever present, reported daily in neat columns of newsprint along with farmers' reports of stray cows, sentimental poems, ads for patent remedies like Brant's Indian Pulmonary Balsam, or word of the war with Mexico, the abdication of the French king, Whigs battling Democrats.

But what if they aren't gone over Jordan after all? What if they are just across the way, a hand's reach, waiting to be seen and heard from?

-----------------------------------------------------
This masterful historical novel by the lauded author of Angle and Apostle is two stories:
The first centers upon the strang, true tale of The Fox Sisters, the family of enigmatic young women who, in upstate New York iin 1848, proclaimed they could converse with the dead. The second story is of the bright promise the Fox Sisters offer up to the skeptical Clara Gill a reclusive women of a certain age who long ago isolated herself with her wildlife paintings, following the scandaloss loss of her beautiful young lover in London.

Lyrical and authentic Captivity is, finally, a talke about physical desire and the hope theat even the thinnest faith can offer up to a a darkening heart. [close:] (less)

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Jul 04, 2010 Teddy rated it 4 of 5 stars

aptivity is actually two stories intertwined that took place mostly in upstate New York in the early to mid 19th century. The first is about the real life Fox Sisters. They were a family of women who were mediums who claimed that they could communicate with the deceased. They had many followers but were also constantly questioned by people who wanted to discredit them. They were put though numerous tests which included improper poking and prodding of the women by men. The Fox Sisters inadvertent...more

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Jun 04, 2010 Adrienne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, 2010, historical-fiction, mystery

Immersive and gripping, this historical fiction keeps the reader guessing until the very well-composed end.

Fans of The Devil in the White City and The Thirteenth Tale will find Captivity equally mesmerizing.

Our slightly longer review is available at http://babytoolkit.blogspot.com/2010/06/captivity.html.

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Aug 16, 2010 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Captivity is an intriguing mystery, social commentary and psychological drama that explores the lives of two very different, and yet similar, women. On the surface, Maggie and Clara have nothing in common, and their burgeoning friendship helps propel the story forward while drawing the reader further into the mystery of the rappings and at the same time examining the significance of the novel. It is a beautifully, carefully written novel that demands the reader's undivided attention and forces t...more Captivity is an intriguing mystery, social commentary and psychological drama that explores the lives of two very different, and yet similar, women. On the surface, Maggie and Clara have nothing in common, and their burgeoning friendship helps propel the story forward while drawing the reader further into the mystery of the rappings and at the same time examining the significance of the novel. It is a beautifully, carefully written novel that demands the reader's undivided attention and forces the reader to take a stand on certain murky happenings. Compelling is too generic a term to describe Captivity fully.

The mystery of the novel involves the mysterious rappings that occur around Maggie and her sisters. The Fox sisters were real women, and they did indeed help found the Spiritualism movement because of these rappings. Ms. Noyes focuses on one of the sisters, allowing us to explore her feelings as her world explodes because of the confusion around these "spiritual" happenings. The truth behind the rappings remains murky, and Ms. Noyes capitalizes on this through her deliberate word choice. Were the Fox sisters truly spiritual mediums or were they charlatans? Ms. Noyes hints at both truths, leaving it up to the reader to make the final decision.

The psychological drama focuses on on these rappings and on Clara's own isolation. Captivity is very much a novel where nothing is as it seems. However, just when the reader realizes this, the story changes and things are exactly as they seem. This builds a tension that never eases, forcing the reader to continue with the story to seek a resolution that never quite seems to appear.

The social commentary is, to me, the most intriguing part of the novel. The 1840s were a time of limited options for women and even worse for single women. The title is an extremely significant indicator of these options. Were women captive to society, to matriarchs or those in authority, to self, to truth, to love, to death? Is anyone really free?

"every person's a slave to choice" (pg. 174)

Maggie is very much captive between two worlds: the living and the dead, her farming past and the rich milieu in which she is suddenly thrust, staying true to her sisters and staying true to her beau.

"we're all prisoners but carry around little worlds inside us that make us free" (pg. 174)

Clara is also struggling to avoid being held captive. It is my belief that her isolation is her attempt to avoid captivity by others, specifically her aunts, gossip and even her father. Regardless of what the reader thinks of the mysterious rappings, Maggie's and Clara's individual struggles through a society with such strict guidelines and expectations give Captivity its heart.

At first, the switching of narrators is confusing, but as each woman's voice becomes clear, the reader settles down to explore the nuances of the story. It has a twist in the middle that literally left my heart racing and me gasping for air because it was so unexpected. The language itself is simply gorgeous in its ability to weave the social commentary around the mystery without appearing obvious or jarring. Captivity is simply literary fiction at its finest.
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Oct 19, 2011 Melinda rated it 3 of 5 stars

If it were possible, I would have given this book 2 1/2 stars, the primary reason being as follows. Some passage connections were simply too hard to follow. They left me wondering if I had missed reading a few lines at the chapter's end because the beginning of the next chapter was ambiguous and sketchy, leaving out valuable threads of information, some of which were never resolved. Maybe this was a result of too many characters.
What was appealing about the book were the seances and Fox sisters...more

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Apr 30, 2011 *•.♥.•*Sabrina Rutter*•.♥.•* rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads, fiction, donated-to-library

I won this in a firstreads giveaway here on goodreads. One of the things I like so much about the giveaway is that I get the chance to step outside of my comfort zone, and find other styles of writing that I can also enjoy. This is definantly another style of writing, but of the type I don't enjoy.
I really hate to give this book a low rating becuase I'm sure the author put a lot of work into this. The writing while very beautiful is just not something I can get into. It took me several hours of...more

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Jun 27, 2010 Jenny Q rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: best-of-2010

This lush and lyrical historical novel is based on the real story of Maggie Fox, of the infamous Fox sisters who claimed they could communicate with the dead and made a fortune conducting seances in mid-nineteenth-century New York. Intertwined with the sisters' story is the story of Clara Gill, a recluse haunted by a past that she fights to suppress every bit as hard as she fights to cling to it. Hers is a tragic story that slowly unravels as she is drawn into an unlikely friendship with Maggie,...more This lush and lyrical historical novel is based on the real story of Maggie Fox, of the infamous Fox sisters who claimed they could communicate with the dead and made a fortune conducting seances in mid-nineteenth-century New York. Intertwined with the sisters' story is the story of Clara Gill, a recluse haunted by a past that she fights to suppress every bit as hard as she fights to cling to it. Hers is a tragic story that slowly unravels as she is drawn into an unlikely friendship with Maggie, a woman who could end up being either her salvation or her undoing.

Part of the beauty of this book is the constant element of the unknown. Is Maggie faking or can she really communicate with the dead? If she is a faker, is it really so bad to give grieving people closure and peace? What happened all those years ago to Clara? Is she really mad? Is her version of past events reliable? Is she really a skeptic or is she secretly yearning for her own closure? It's remarkable to me that the author is able to create such realistic, compelling, and empathetic characters without ever really revealing the fundamental truths about them.

As I was reading this book I marked dozens of beautifully written passages and realized I could easily end up quoting the whole book in this review. So I forced myself to choose one to share as an example of the quality and resonance of the prose in this book, and this is it:

Real death is not a parlor game but a flat heaviness that weights the limbs, that makes every step a struggle, every breath reproach and violation. It is mold on the morning firewood and a chill that won't go even when the hearth is banked to roaring, even when the familiar quilt is wound full round weighted legs and feet on a stool like a winding sheet. It is the bitterness of herbs in an undertaker's parlor and damp shoes by a hole in the ground and the absence of sunlight and emptiness beyond reckoning.

There's not a word out of place in this gripping, touching and deeply satisfying novel. One of my favorite books of the year.

"Understand that thou thyself art another world in little, and hast with thee the sun and the moon, and also the stars. Thou seest that thou hast all those things which the world hath."

All this, captive in me.
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Aug 22, 2010 Misfit rated it 4 of 5 stars

“Nothing here is as it seems.”

Captivity begins in Rochester New York in 1848 and tells the story of sisters Leah, Maggie and Kate Fox, who helped give rise to the Spiritualist movement. Younger sisters Maggie and Kate seem to have a gift of communicating with the spirit world via "rapping" (don't ask me to explain it), and managed by older sister Leah they capitalized on their *skills* by giving séances and summoning the dead for grieving loved ones. Their story is intertwined with the fictional...more

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Jun 14, 2010 Christy B (Readin' and Dreamin') rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arcs-and-galleys, fiction, historical-fiction, neo-victorian

Set in 1840 and 50s New York, Captivity is an engaging story revolving around the infamous Fox sisters, who single-handedly started the spiritualist movement in America. The sisters Maggie and Kate used 'tapping' to communicate with the dead while their sister Leah led from the background.

Intertwined with the Fox sisters' story, is the story of fictional character Clara, who is originally from London. Now living in New York with her father, Clara is a recluse with mystery and gossip swirling aro...more

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Mar 17, 2010 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical, fiction

From my blog....[return]Captivity by Deborah Noyes is a stroke of literary genius and written unlike any other novel I have read, which captures and at the same time commands the reader's attention to even the smallest of details. A highly philosophical novel, Captivity must be savoured in small quantities and thought about before the reader can proceed further with the novel. Noyes' writing captures the era, the sites, sounds, and beliefs of a time long past. In Captivity, based on the historic...more From my blog....[return]Captivity by Deborah Noyes is a stroke of literary genius and written unlike any other novel I have read, which captures and at the same time commands the reader's attention to even the smallest of details. A highly philosophical novel, Captivity must be savoured in small quantities and thought about before the reader can proceed further with the novel. Noyes' writing captures the era, the sites, sounds, and beliefs of a time long past. In Captivity, based on the historical Fox sisters and the fictionalized Clara Gill and with brilliant creative license, Noyes' characters are written in such a manner that they become quite real to the reader. The story takes place in 1840s New York, toggles back and forth between the Fox Sisters and Clara Gill's life, at times intersecting, while other times Clara's narrative takes the reader back to England when she still went out and was relatively carefree and in love. The Fox sisters, Leah, Maggie and Kate have a gift, referred to as knocking, that allows them to commune with the dead. Naturally, due to the times, there were many who believed but many who did not believe and felt at they very least they were committing fraud. The Fox sisters go through a series of committees and public hearings and are found innocent of all counts of fraud, yet each time the public demands yet another committee. All the while the Fox Sisters, whether knowing it or not are beginning a new phenomenon in America. Meanwhile, a scandal occurred in England forcing Clara and her father to flee into relative obscurity, settling in New York. Clara, indulged by her father is so reclusive she rarely even leaves the safety of her room. What secret binds Clara and her father so close, yet so distant? What cruelty has occurred in Clara's past to cause a once enthusiastic woman to choose to seclude herself within her darkened room with only her memories, her seashells, and her sketches? When Maggie is sent to help in the Gill residence, is it a kindred soul she sees in Clara Gill, if not, how else can one explain Maggie's repeated attempts to draw Clara Gill out, literally and figuratively? While it may appear as though I have given the entirety of the novel away, rest assured I have not even begun to touch the depth and breadth of this extraordinary novel. Noyes has created a deeply profound and at times quite philosophical novel, which lends itself to contemplation and would make for a brilliant discussion group novel. Captivity is in a class all its own. The distinctive narratives and relationships are masterfully crafted and are seamlessly interwoven until the story reads as a singular novel rather than several tributaries, which make up the whole. My words cannot do justice to this work of literary genius and it is my fervent hope that Deborah Noyes is working on yet her next literary masterpiece.(less)

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Aug 06, 2011 Hannah Bray rated it 2 of 5 stars

Disappointing - a shaggy dog story, the long back-and-forth story lines ultimately not worth the cliched emothional pay-off.

This book had too many off bits: the over-pairing of adverbs and adjectives in parenthetical phrases; the two story lines; the non-linear story-telling; how first person characters seemed jarringly different as third person characters; the confusion of 'hero' - was it Maggie? Was it Clara? Couldn't overcome the few, resonating successful bits.

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Apr 06, 2013 Cyn rated it 3 of 5 stars

There are two parallel stories in this fictionalized tale of the origins of the American Spiritualist movement and I found one of the two much more engaging from the outset than the other. The story of the Fox sisters did not engage me until about two thirds of the way into the book but the story of Clara the "spinster" shut-in, engaged me right away. In the last third of the book when the stories truly converged was the part of the book I found most engaging. The writing is excellent and the tw...more

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Oct 11, 2010 Chrissy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, rao-reviews, spiritualism, american-lit, 2010, 31-days-of-halloween-2010

Captivity is told in two parts. The first centers around the true story of the Fox Sisters, who in 1848 upstate New York, proclaimed they could converse with the dead. Their declaration incidentally gave rise to a religious movement known as Spiritualism, which garnered followers from two continents, including the rich and famous.

The second story revolves around Clara Gill, a self-isolated “woman of a certain age” who seeks the refuge of her drawings rather than that of the outside world after l...more

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May 09, 2011 Lindis Russell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really liked this book. It wasn't what I expected it to be, but in a delightful way. Deborah Noyes did a wonderful job of using the voice of the 1830's and 40's without taking it over the edge. Her writing gave me a nice feel of the time, with out it being difficult to read. I will admit that I was a bit lost at first. It starts out as the story of two different lives, but the lives of these two women are then woven together nicely. I am now interested in reading some of the books about Maggie...more

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Aug 29, 2010 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, friendship, fantasy-supernatural

I liked the combination of fact and fiction, and I was intrigued by the Fox sisters of upperstate NY spirituality fame in the mid 1800's. I enjoyed Noyes' Angel and Apostle, her first book, and I think this book is written better than her first. I think she is an emerging author whose style is improving with each book she writes.

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May 28, 2011 Cheryl added it · review of another edition

I won this as a first read. Though I have marked this as read I have not finished the book nor will I. The concept of the book sounded great even though it isn't something that I would normally read. Noyes has an eloquent writing style but it wasn't able to capture my interest. I read to page 110 but it felt like page 572. I couldn't concentrate on what was being portrayed. I appreciate the free book and the fact that Noyes signed it but I will give this book to someone who will enjoy it and enc...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Jen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I liked the book and the historical elements. It was an interesting mix of the 2 stories. At times a bit tough to follow. Not a spooky story by any means. Not much happening in the ways of ghosts. You never really get the answer to the question: Are they faking this? Many parts of the story are inferred and left up to the reader to decide.

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Dec 09, 2010 Red rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction

An evocative work of historical fiction centered around the birth of American Spiritualism in the mid-1800s. The double narrative relates the stories of Margaretta and Clara, women with complicated motives and circumstances. The characters and themes are beguiling, as is the author's singular and lyrical prose.

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Dec 10, 2010 Mary rated it 2 of 5 stars

I couldnt finish this. The author writes well but its very wordy, which kept me uninterested in the story line. I just couldnt get into the style of writing. Rarely do I put down a book but this one felt more like a "chore"

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Feb 21, 2011 Alicia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Filled with lovely, lyrical language. Unfortunately, she manages to drain most of the inherent spookyness from her own plot. She does very little with the supernatural aspects of the spiritualist movement which forms the backdrop of the story. There a few chapters scattered throughout that are gripping enough to give you hope that the whole thing is going to pick up the pace & come together. Not. Still, the first 1/3 of the book is filled with beautiful imagery.

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Oct 15, 2011 Francis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes it's the story and sometimes it's the prose. The story entertained, but what I really liked, was the rhythm and the flow of the words.

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Jun 28, 2010 Laura de Leon marked it as to-find

Shelves: historical-fiction, possible-bc-nominee

http://litandlife.blogspot.com/2010/0...

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Oct 07, 2012 Laurao rated it 4 of 5 stars

Read it to the end to realize I'd already read it. Enjoyed it the second time also...

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Historical Fiction

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Esoterica > Spiritualism

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Mystery

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Horror

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Fantasy > Paranormal

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Paranormal > Ghosts

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Horror > Ghost Stories

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Gothic

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Literature > 19th Century

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About Deborah Noyes

Deb writes for adults and children and is also an editor and photographer. She lives in Massachusetts with her family.

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Books by Deborah Noyes

The Restless Dead: Ten Original Stories of the Supernatural

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Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secret of Silk Out of China

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Quotes from Captivity

“Oh cozy horror." ~Clara” — 2 people liked it

“My point, Clara Gill, is that it's wise to choose your allegiance in this world, take a side or a story or a creed, but you might be wrong. You might be dazzled."~Will Cross” — 1 person liked it

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