The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs: A Novel

I was really looking forward to this book, especially because I had loved "The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane". So far, I am about 1/3 through and I am ready to drop it, not to be picked up again.. Connie is absolutely unbelievable as a character, and I am tired of reading about the stress of grading papers and throwing around the names of Harvard and Northeastern. She is chaotic, confusing and naive, and I don't know how she got to the point in her career where she's at. The characters of Grace, Sam and Zazi are much better developed.It has been too long for me to remember details from "The Physick Book...", and while references to that book pop up frequently, they don't refresh the memory, they are mostly tossed randomly into the story. The book so far feels more like a core class in something boring, a class that you have to take to graduate. And that is the biggest problem that I have so far: this book reads more like a textbook than a novel. I am going to read a little bit more, but chances are slim that I am going to finish this book, and I don't think I will read anything else from this author after this. Very disappointing... Unfortunately, I did NOT get an ARC and had to pay full price for this book, and it reminds me to read the sample first before buying the book blindly.UPDATE, 6/30/19: I did finish the book and changed my original rating from 2 stars to 3 stars, but I don't feel that it deserves more than that. Connie's character stays the same throughout the rest of the book (whiny and naive), and I only gave another star because I was able do finish the book and didn't send it back for a refund.

The author had 50 different trains of thought in this book that went no where. So many loose ends and ideas that just seemed so unfinished. I don’t even know who the daughter of Temperance Hobbs is! I really enjoyed Deliverance Dane, but that was also 10 years ago, so trying to piece things together from that previous book was hard. Wanted to like it—but very disappointed.

Just a bummer dang it. I look forward to one good summer read and I was really excited about this one, as I had read the Deliverance Dane book when it first came out. I kept waiting for ths book to take me somewhere exciting, where I wouldn’t want to put it down, it just never happened. It almost felt like the book should have been longer to fit in detail and excitement, but then I realized half of what was in the book should been left out and replaced with better content. I enjoyed the historical information after the story’s end. Loved the artwork on the book cover, wished the book would have been better.

Katherine Howe’s “The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs” picks up approximately nine years after the events of her debut novel, “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane,” and returns to Connie Goodwin, now a professor at Boston’s Northeastern University, who must work to counter a curse that follows her family using the aforementioned physick book that she discovered during her PhD candidacy. This curse threatens Sam, the steeplejack Connie met in her graduate school days and who is now her partner. Connie gains new insight into folklore through Zazi, one of her advisees, who specializes in southwestern witchcraft traditions. Howe, who studied witchcraft and served as the editor of “The Penguin Book of Witches,” references various historical witchcraft traditions in a manner that adds a welcome touch of realism to the fantasy genre. Further, her depiction of academia will ring true for those who have pursued graduate education in the humanities.For example, as Connie attends a graduate-level symposium, a grad student delivers “a paper so rife with jargon that it had essentially amounted to a long recitation of the same bibliography that all grad students recite when they first discover critical theory. Butler, Kristeva, Lacan, Derrida, Foucault…” (pg. 103-104). In the previous novel, Howe portrayed Connie as working on her dissertation in 1991 without the aid of computer archival research. In advancing the plot to the year 2000, she’s able to comment on the changes computers introduced to academia, writing, “Computers, man. They made history research so fast Connie almost couldn’t believe it” (pg. 126). At one point, Howe perfectly summarizes the PhD process in a single sentence, writing, “There was so little in this process that was under anyone’s control” (pg. 121).As a PhD candidate, I find Howe’s portrayal of academia remarkably accurate. This, of course, results from Howe’s own experience in higher education. I read her debut novel just prior to beginning my PhD and it prepared me for some of the culture of higher education just as I find this novel an accurate depiction of ABD life, though technology has changed since the novel’s setting in early 2000. Further, Howe’s depiction of interdepartmental politics (pgs. 12-14, 97-98, 209-211) and graduate student politics (pg. 253-254), while fictional and condensed for the sake of narrative, will resonate with grad students and postdocs. In her author’s note, Howe argues of the decline in witchcraft prosecutions in the eighteenth century, “As common households in Britain and the colonies found it easier to secure food and goods, adjudicating the bewitchment of calves or butter was no longer of the mortal import that it had been in the 1600s. Economics, rather than changed belief, pushed witchcraft off the legal docket” (pg. 334). She also admits to where she left the story subjective at the end for the reader’s benefit, though Howe explains how even that subjectivity is based on historical and pharmaceutical evidence. Through these notes, Howe plays a key role in fostering an interest in historical scholarship with her novels acting as a “gateway drug” to the exciting sense of discovery that accompanies archival work.

After reading The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs, I have to say it left me cold. I found myself reading it just to finish it as nothing really happened. Her previous novel had some scary elements in it while this one was kind of laughable. The storyline could have been left at the end of the Physick Book of Deliverance Dane with no problems.The only time I got emotional was SPOILER ALERT: when Arlo died in the apartment fire. That upset me. END OF SPOILER ALERT.I enjoyed reading about the historical research but again feel like nothing really progressed. I will most likely end up donating the book.

Why...oh why....did I have to finish reading this book? The end feels like coming out of a delicious dream and you want to go back. Suspend today's beliefs and let yourself travel back mentally to a clouded period of spells, charms, fear of the dark and you will eagerly await the next offering of this gifted author. It will take a day or two to re-enter the harsh glare of 2019, and this book and it's companion will sit on my library shelf beckoning for a re-read.

Loved the first book - so very happy about the second one. Indeed I had been checking every year since the first had come out - hoping. In the mean time enjoying other works by Katherine Howe.It was great to spend time with Connie and all the fascinating people that come with her. Such broad and indepth knowledge of so many interesting subjects, interesting people and also places.Katherine Howe will there be a third? Surely a trilogy is the way to go :)

Amazing settings in the story, while following the main character in present time, you also get insight into the life of her witchy ancestors.The description are immersing.I didn't think I would love it that much, I saw it on my feed on social media and bought it without any informations on the book beforehand. It is now one of my favorite book !