In 1692, Ned Low (who will later be the infamous pirate captain) has been kidnapped by the cruel Captain Lowther and is living a hellish life aboard his ship that will eventually lead to Low himself down an evil path, while his mother and the girl he wants to marry have both been arrested in the Salem Witch Hunt. When Low learns of this from a Haitian psychic child prostitute, he tricks Lowther into sailing to his old home on the North Shore of Massachusetts, to rescue them. There are also a lot of flash-forwards to Marblehead, Massachusetts, 1995, where a lot of characters in this story, both real and fictional, come back as ghosts to haunt the town, and only a psychic real estate agent named Cassie can see them.
While DREAMWATER is indeed imaginative and well-written, there is one aspect of it that is in such incredibly poor taste: sex scenes with underage characters. While it’s true that, as Goodwin herself says in the introduction, there was no age of consent in the 17th Century, and it’s in the interest of historical accuracy, the scenes are far more graphic and detailed than they need to be, and leave the reader feeling incredibly uncomfortable.
Which is a shame, really. DREAMWATER is mostly a great story. The sense of the tragedy of Ned Low is poignant: still in love with an innocent girl, but increasingly reflecting the darkness around him. Towards the end, his self-evaluation reads, “The only thing he was fit for was murder.” [p. 310] The parts of the novel set in the 20th Century are admittedly less memorable, full of weird digressions and tangents, but still grounded by the charming pairing of the characters Jo and Cassandra, the half-psychic real estate agency.
DREAMWATER is a well-thought-out fantasy epic, for history buffs and ghost-story-lovers alike, but the sensationalized underage sex ultimately mars it.
Reviewed by Charles Baker for IndieReader