Charis in the World of Wonders: A Novel Set in Puritan New England

Fleeing an attack of Native Americans, Charis escapes into the wilderness and searches for another place to call home. As the young woman learns to rely on her instincts, the untamed forest she had been taught to fear becomes a place of not just danger but also enchantment. The experience stays with Charis as she settles in a village and rebuilds her life. But her perils are not over. She soon learns that the human heart is more mysterious and treacher- ous than the wilderness. As the mass hysteria over witchcraft begins in nearby Salem, superstition and suspicion spread to her community, threatening to destroy her newfound happi- ness and even her life. Both darkness and light inhabit the seventeenth-century forests and villages of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and young Charis must learn to discern between them in order to survive. Yet even when evil and death overshadow her, she perceives the beauty that beckons to be discovered within the world of wonders.