Goodreads asked Greg Houle:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Greg Houle My mother is from the Putnam family, and growing up in New England, we were always told that we had some connection to the Salem witch trials. Despite my lifelong interest in history, I never really had much interest in this connection and I never bothered to explore it more deeply.

During the summer of 2021, while back east to visit family, I thought it would be fun for my daughter, who was twelve at the time, to see Salem. So, we visited while we were in Boston. I think because I wanted my daughter to be able to connect to the Putnam side of her heritage, I began looking more deeply at the family connection and soon realized that I was a direct descendent—the seventh great-grandson—of Thomas Putnam, Jr., who, along with his daughter, Ann, were two of the most prominent protagonists of the Salem witch crisis. They accused dozens of people, including most of those who were executed.

Until this moment, I had no idea how closely connected our family was to these events and that got my creative energy flowing. I dove into the story and tried to understand everything. What’s always interested me about history is not the collection of names and dates and events but that it’s about people and the choices that they make. I started to think about Thomas and Ann and what must have been going through their heads during the intense few months of the witch crisis. What were they thinking? What were they trying to accomplish by making all of those accusations? All of this led me to start writing and that's how The Putnams of Salem was born.

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