In a previous blog post, I wrote about a book called How to Hang a Witch, that solely focused on the matter of the Salem Witch trials in today’s modern world with a small twist of ghosts and magic along the way. In today’s blog post, I am going to be writing about the second installment of Adrianna Mather’s How to Hang a Witch series, Haunting the Deep.
Haunting the Deep by Adrianna Mathers was released in 2017, fairly new, and received an abundance of good reviews from readers like myself. Although these novels are mostly meant to be Young Adult novels with teen romance and ghost stories, as a blossoming twenty-three year old, I found this book to be more than tasteful to my pallete. Maybe it’s due to my perpetual undying love of the paranormal and the history of the Titanic, but this book was such a fun read during my 2020 pandemic quarantine time.
This novel is extremely vivid in the way Mather’s describes her characters as well as the scenes within the novel itself. The story begins with Samantha Mather, the main character, living her life after what had happened within the first book of the series, How to Hang a Witch. She is still attending her highschool in the town of Salem, Massachusetts and has made friends with her past rivals, The Descendents. If you don’t remember, The Descendents are a group of girls whose relatives were victims of the Salem Witch Trials many years ago. Now that their differences have been aired out, Sam and the group of girls are closer and happier than ever. Their happiness doesn’t last long though. As any novel has a climax of paramount events, this one takes you for a ride you won’t forget.
As the school dance is coming to an opening, a theme needs to be chosen. And as Sam’s luck happens, the theme is decided on the Titanic. As preparations for the dance continue, Sam begins to receive mysterious letters in the mail, as well as mysterious presents that appear to her. Each and every one of the presents and letters are directly related to men and women who died on the Titanic so long ago. Not only is she plagued with real life connections to the Titanic but whenever she sleeps, she is shifted to a new reality of the Titanic living with no understanding as to why.
As the first installment of the series involved a casted spell on Salem, this novel includes a new and bigger spell with a twist. And it involves the Titanic victims and loads of history to back it up. With the help of her new friends, The Descendents, and her ghostly crush, Elijah, the team makes their way through clues and symbols of who might be casting the spell, as well as why and how to stop it. Maybe I loved this book because of the magic and paranormal aspects but I truly had an obsession with the Titanic as a child and I think this fueled my love for the history behind it even more.