Similar in many ways to A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, in that it's the story of a young academic who, during the course of her research, stumbles upon a document that ends up leading her down a path of learning about the women caught up in the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century. Oh, and that witches are real.

The tone of the book, however, is very different. It's a bit more serious, and a lot more grounded in reality (though still a bit of a far fetch, there are no other supernatural beings in this book).

I stumbled upon this book at the library by chance, borrowed it on a whim, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I will add, though, that there were a few things that irked me. Connie, the protagonist is supposed to be a doctoral student of colonial US history. And yet she didn't immediately know that "receipt" was the term used at the time to mean "recipe." It took her ages to realize that. (view spoiler)[It also didn't occur to her that her own name and her mother's name fit the pattern of the women in the family she was studying -- it never occurred to her that these women were part of her family, despite the fact that she first learned about them because of something she found in her grandmother's house. (hide spoiler)]

There were several other instances where I thought, "Seriously? You don't know that? How in god's name did you pass your orals without knowing that?" But those little irritations aside, I did enjoy the book.