Colorado Novelist Paula Reed Tackles Nathaniel Hawthorne with GUSTO!

Most American high school students have read The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Littleton English teacher Paula Reed decided to fill in the gaps in the story line with her own novel- Hester: The Missing Years of the Scarlet Letter. Reed was a victim of the Columbine shootings in 1999, and while she previously wrote historical fiction, this time she fed upon her personal trauma to evoke true emotion and passion in her writing.

Those of you who don't recall the famous story of Hester Prynne, it circles around a woman whose husband has sent her to America ahead of him, but never makes it out to join her and eventually is presumed lost at sea. Hester becomes with child while he is absent and she is accused of Adultery by her Puritan village and forced to wear a big Scarlet Letter "A" on her bosom. She refuses to name the father of the child, even when she is punished and humiliated in the stocks. The stringent rules of the society and the judgmental power of the people make the lives of all parties miserable, and when the truth comes out, finally, tragedy ensues. Hester and her daughter, Pearl, disappear, and no one knows what has become of them, but Hester returns to the village, wearing her Scarlet Letter to the end of her days.

Paula Reed has dared to fill in just what Hester and Pearl decided to do with the year that they were absent from the village. In her novel, the two head to England, and experience the great turmoil that was the Cromwell Period. If you love all things Tudors, you may just adore this fictional work that speculates upon just what might have happened if Hester Prynne had come across Oliver Cromwell.