Brenda Murphy's When Light Breaks Through is a well-researched historical novel based on the 1692 Salem Village witchcraft trials in Massachusetts. The characters are based on actual figures of the time. At the story's core is the challenge of helping a deeply divided community to...

Brenda Murphy’s Kindling of a Firebrand is set in Boston, where Fran Sweeney grows from a Charlestown dockworker’s daughter into a Catholic woman drawn toward labor politics during the Depression. After illness damages her heart, her parents send her to Mount St. Joseph Academy, where...