Week 1: The Raging Quiet.

The Raging Quite by Sherryl Jordan starts off slow, but becomes more and more interesting. This novel is set in an undetermined time in the middle ages of Celtic Britain, or so its explained. The main character Marnie, is sixteen years old and the eldest sister of a family of tenant farmers. They work several days a week on the Landlords fields instead of their own. When her father grows ill, she agrees to marry the landlords son, Isake, who is twice her age and a widower, so that her family can keep their large house on the estate. In the beginning of the story, Marnie and her newly wed husband, Isake, are on their way from Fernleigh, Marnie's home town, to Isakes manor, about a day's wagon ride away. The only town close enough to either of those two places is a town named Torcurra. Isake, who stops here for business matters, owns a house by the sea in Torcurra. He inherited this house from his grandmother who was burned at the stakes for being accused of witchcraft and black magic. Isake, and the townsfolk both describe the house as "cursed". Mysteriously, even though the house doesn't look like much at all, Isake said that its worth more than all his father's land put together.
When Marnie first gets to Torcurra she meets Raver, a "devil possessed mad man", and Father Brannann, a kind priest in a small church in between where the "cursed" house resides and the town market is set up. The only people in Torcurra who are descent to her is Raver, who she renamed Raven because he doesn't give expecting to get something back, and according to the good scripture "Ravens neither sow nor reap, but the Good Lord feeds them.",
Marnie, however, is not happy with married life and has never been this far away from her family. Only a few days into their marriage, the bridegroom dies from a fall while thatching the roof. Marnie found him on the floor of the house with blood coming from his head. Screaming and crying she seeks help and runs to the church were Father Brannann is. She believes that her husbands death is her fault because she prayed to the Good Lord that something would happen to her, whether it be Plague or ugliness, and that he would stop loving her. The Villagers overhear this and become superstitious of her think that she killed Isake.
Gradually, Marnie comes to believe that Raven is not mad, but deaf. She devises hand signs and wins first his trust, then his devotion as she opens a world of communication to one who has been isolated his whole life, even though the priest tries to take care of him every now and then. The priest doesn't think that Marnie and Raven communicating is a good idea because the townsfolk are already thinking that Marnie killed her husband, and communicating with Raven may make it look like she's using black magic to talk to his demons