New release from Sibylline Press today!

A paperback book standing upright. Mountains in the background and winding tree roots with a buried skull. The title of the book is Bitterroot by Suzy Vitello

Silence

A Novel

by Julia Park Tracey

Historical Fiction | Trade paper $18 | ISBN: 9781736795491 | On Sale TODAY!

After three grievous losses, Puritan woman Silence Marsh dares to question God aloud in the church, and that blasphemy lands her in trouble—she is silenced for a year by the powers that govern. Broken in heart and spirit, Silence learns to mime and sign, but it isn’t until a new Boston doctor comes to her backward Cape Cod village that she begins to hope again. Rather than treating Silence with bleeding or leeches, Dr. Greenleaf prescribes fresh air, St. John’s Wort, long walks—and reading.

Silence has half a hope of getting through her year of punishment when the cry of witchcraft poisons the village. Colonial Massachusetts is still reeling from the Salem Witch Trials just 20 years before. Now, after they demanded her silence, she is called to witness at a witchcraft trial—or be accused herself.

A whiff of sulfur and witchcraft shadows this literary Puritan tale of loss and redemption, based on this bestselling historical fiction author’s own ancestor, her seventh great-grandmother.

Read an excerpt

LEARN MORE

“Park Tracey is a remarkable writer, and this book is another triumph. A historically astute and compelling must-read.”

—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“Historical fiction, yes, but more importantly an inquiry into female agency and power in a world that takes the breaking of the spirit as its right. Beautiful.”

—Christian Kiefer, author of The Heart Of It All

“...a powerful, lyrical marvel of a novel.”

—Jean Hegland, author of Into the Forest

Julia Park Tracey

Bestselling historical fiction author Julia Park Tracey’s ancestors and their stories have given her a trail to follow from New York and New England to the Deep South and the Pacific Coast. The Bereaved: A Novel, the story of her great, great grandmother’s loss of her children to the Orphan Train was named in the top 100 indie books published in 2023 by Kirkus Reviews. Silence is the story of another “an-sister,” Silence Greenleaf.

Book Trailer for Silence

You're invited to the Retracing the Witch Trials Tour

with Julia Park Tracey

For the days leading up to All Hallows Eve (October 19 through 30), Julia Park Tracey will visit bookstores, libraries, museums, historical societies, and festivals throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire as part of her Retracing the Witch Trials Tour. Join her in-person or by livestream! As she discusses her novel, Silence, she’ll also share information about the witch trials, the handicrafts of the era, the constraints on women, and the way women found their voices despite those constraints, as well as the Ancestry.com research behind this highly acclaimed novel.

Learn More