Melissa Joy Adams (Children's Literature)
Anne Green, a servant in Sir Thomas Reade’s household, lies in total darkness and no matter how hard she tries she cannot move. The last thing she remembers is standing on a scaffold about to be hanged. Unsure if she is dead or buried alive, she slowly begins to remember what led her to the scaffold. Seduced and impregnated by young Master George, Sir Thomas’ nephew, Anne gives birth to a stillborn, a crime punishable by death in 17th century England. Unbeknownst to Anne in her deathly state, doctors prepare for her dissection. But before they make an incision, an Oxford medical student, Robert, sees Anne’s eyelids move. Believing that Anne has come back from the dead, Robert attempts to convince the other doctors to stop the dissection and help restore her to life. Their decision will determine Anne’s fate. Hooper’s writing style, alternating between Anne’s and Robert’s stories, captivates readers, keeping them entranced until all is revealed. With a fresh plot, inspired by the real life events of Anne Green and the realistic 17th century setting, Hooper’s novel would be well suited for use in history or literature classes. Additionally, Anne’s authentic teen voice and the subject matter make this novel useful in discussing relevant teen issues--teen pregnancy and infanticide--in a non-confrontational way. 2008, Roaring Brook Press, $16.95. Ages 12 up.

Tara Tomlinson (Heart of Texas Reviews (Vol. 21, No. 4))
This historical novel is based on the true story of Anne Green in the mid-1600s. Anne is the servant of Sir Thomas Read and has been building a relationship with John Taylor, a blacksmith. When Sir Thomas’ grandson and heir, Geoffrey, promises Anne a better life if she will sleep with him, she believes him. After becoming pregnant, Geoffrey refuses to acknowledge any relationship with her and she miscarries at six months. Sir Thomas finds out and has Anne arrested and convicted of murdering the child, even though it was not born alive. Anne is sentenced to be hanged and her body given to doctors to dissect for their medical knowledge. As they are beginning to make the first cut, a medical student notices her eyes twitch and the dissection is stopped. The doctors bring her back to life and she becomes something of a celebrity. So much so that the doctors begin charging a fee to see her and the money is used to buy her a pardon. Her old boyfriend returns to her and they marry. The story alternates between Anne’s piecing together her recollections of the events leading up to her hanging and the events that are occurring in the present. Included at the end of the story are an author’s note, a reprint of a 1651 pamphlet detailing Anne Greene’s remarkable recovery, and a bibliography. Many of the terms in the book will be unfamiliar to current-day teenagers, and that may make the story difficult to follow. Fiction. Grades n/a. 2008, Roaring Brook, 263p., $16.95.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2008 (Vol. 76, No. 7))
A hanged scullery maid rises from the dead in this fascinating historical novel based on actual events in Cromwellian England. Wrongly accused of infanticide after delivering the stillborn child of her wealthy employer's ignoble grandson, Anne Green is sentenced to death. After being hanged, Anne awakens to a state of suspended animation, where she can neither see nor speak. She begins silently reviewing the sordid circumstances that led to her demise, while on the other side of the coffin's lid, Oxford's finest physicians discuss her imminent dissection. Luckily, a shy medical student observes her flickering eyelids and the doctors stay their knives. Anne is successfully revived, her near-death condition attributed to an ill-placed knot in the noose. Hooper takes what could have been a lurid tale of being buried alive and turns it into a suspenseful and thoughtful exploration of capital punishment, class bias, religious belief and medical ethics. Fans of Jennifer Donnelly's A Northern Light (2003) or Julie Hearn's The Minister's Daughter (2005) will be eager to make Anne's acquaintance. 2008, Roaring Brook, 256p, $15.95. Category: Fiction. Ages 13 up. © 2008 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Claire Rosser (KLIATT Review, July 2008 (Vol. 42, No. 4))
The basic facts of this novel make it intriguing. In England in 1650, a servant girl named Anne Green was seduced by the young master of the house. When her baby died she was accused of murder and hung in the public square. Her body was handed over to the medical people for an autopsy. Anne Green lay as dead, but before the cutting began, she moved slightly; it was discovered by one of the students that she was alive. She slowly came out of a deep coma and returned to life. These are the facts of the story, with the original Newes from the Dead, or a True and Exact Narration of the Miraculous Deliverance of Anne Green, published in 1651, included at the end of the novel. Also at the end of the book is an author’s note about her fascination with Anne Green’s story and a scientific explanation of how this could have happened. I find the format a bit awkward, with the narrative shifting from the events in the Oxfordshire room where the autopsy is to be performed to the first-person memories of Anne, as she slowly returns from the dead. The author has the background story revealed through Anne’s thoughts as her “dead” body lies there on the table--that’s the part I find awkward. The cover illustration is eerie, as is the whole story. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: JSA--Recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2008, Roaring Brook, 260p. illus. bibliog., $16.95. Ages 12 to adult.

Lu Ann Staheli (Library Media Connection, April/May 2008)
Maidservant Anne Green has been hanged as a murderess. She should be dead, but she's terrified she has instead been buried alive; perhaps a worse punishment for believing Master Geoffrey, Sir Thomas's heir, would someday marry her. When Anne's body is turned over for dissection, young scholar Robert Matthews feels an unusual attachment to her, deep memories of seeing his own mother's corpse. As the story unfolds, Anne tells the life choices that brought her to the gallows and this dark place that surely can't be paradise, while Robert recounts the procedures leading up to the dissection, and the startling realization that Anne is not dead. Based on a true story from 1650, readers will be drawn into the race to save Anne from both the hangman and the scholars. The book contains many explicit sexual references and a childbirth scene, but the story is compelling and well written. Recommended. 2008, Roaring Brook Press, 256pp., $15.95 hc.. Ages 14 to 18.

Melanie Hundley (The ALAN Review, Fall 2009 (Vol. 37, No. 1))
In 1650, a teenage housemaid, Anne Green, was hanged for infanticide; she woke up in her coffin several hours later. This novel is based on Anne Green’s case and opens with the line, “It is very dark when I wake.” The reader immediately experiences Anne’s thoughts and her frantic struggle to figure out where she is and how she got there. Anne’s experiences--the sexual abuse at the hands of her employer, her pregnancy, and the trial, are juxtaposed with the narrative from the young surgeon who is attending his first dissection. The young surgeon thinks he sees eye flutters and movement from the “corpse” of the young housemaid and has to convince the other doctors that Anne is, in fact, alive. The author uses historical accounts, pamphlets, and documents from the time period to add to the authenticity of the novel. Some of the original documents are included. Category: Historical/True Story. YA--Young Adult. 2008, Roaring Book Press, 272 pp., $16.99. Ages young adult.Nashville, TN

Lindsay Smith (The ALAN Review, Winter 2009 (Vol. 36, No. 2))
This novel is based on the true story of Anne Green, a servant who survived her own death after being sentenced to death by hanging for infanticide. Newes from the Dead takes place in 1650 England during the civil war between King Charles and Parliament. After being hanged for the murder of her new born baby, Anne Green wakes up on a lab table wondering if she is in Heaven, Hell, or somewhere between the two. Through the help of a shy young medical student named Robert, doctors discover that Anne survived her own death. This story is beautifully written and includes a large number of historical events. Hooper concludes the novel with an author’s note that shares more historical content and includes the actual facts behind the true story of Green’s medical miracle. This is a great book for readers 14 and up who love realistic and eerie storylines. Category: Fiction/England. YA--Young Adult. 2008, Roaring Book Press, 246 pp., $15.95. Ages young adult.Fayetteville, AR

Elizabeth Bush (The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, May 2008 (Vol. 61, No. 9))
This fictionalized account of a ripped-from-the-headlines event (the headlines of 1650, that is) opens with servant girl Anne Green slipping back into a state of consciousness following her hanging for the crime of infanticide. With her body still immobilized from the trauma, Anne tries to make sense of her present condition and, uncertain whether she’s dead or alive, she passes the time by reviewing the sad chain of events that brought her to the gallows. Seduced by her employer’s grandson, she delivered a premature, stillborn baby; in an effort to keep the family name unsullied and the grandson’s propitious engagement on track, Sir Thomas Reade used his influence to have Anne charged with infanticide and hanged. While a seemingly dead Anne muses on this injustice, a team of scholars and physicians prepares to dissect her body, which they have purchased from the family at the time of the execution. A flicker of eye movement, a faint rale, and an uncertain pulse halt the proceedings, and as the attendant Sir Thomas bellows to carry on with the dissection, the medical men pool their strategies for reviving Anne, demonstrating how God’s justice has been manifest through this miracle—and securing their own professional laurels into the bargain. Anne’s comatose chronicle isn’t the most convincing narrative vehicle, and Hooper’s detailing of Anne’s sexual encounters and the melodramatic build-up to the dissection-that-almost-was propel readers into role of prurient voyeur that she seems to criticize in Anne’s contemporaries. Still, the based-on-fact story is undeniably compelling, and teens needn’t wait until Halloween for a brush with the macabre Review Code: Ad -- Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 2006, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2008, Roaring Brook, [256p].; Reviewed from galleys, $15.95. Grades 9-12.

Cheryl French (VOYA, August 2008 (Vol. 31, No. 3))
Hooper blends fact and fiction in this historical novel, giving readers the fascinating story of Anne Green, a servant who in 1650 was accused of murdering her baby, hanged in Oxford, and revived on the verge of dissection. In alternating chapters, readers are taken first into Anne's head as she reminisces about the events leading to her hanging, and then into the room in which Robert Matthews, a young scholar, has arrived for the anatomy lesson her body was to provide. With the twitch of an eye, the dissection becomes instead an enormous recovery effort, full of fear, wonder, and hope. With realistic and compassionate details, Hooper gives flesh to primary and secondary characters alike. Their various stories unfold naturally, with pacing that slowly draws in readers. Anne's tale is simultaneously mundane and horrifying. Readers will cringe as they witness the nanve choices Anne makes and share her disbelief as she suffers the filth of prison and the horrors of her death sentence. Although historical in tone, setting, and characters, the language is accessible to today's teens, thus bringing immediacy to otherwise distant events. An author's note, a reprinting of the original narration of the event, and a bibliography add to the novel's authenticity and provide a starting point for further research and discussion. This book will appeal most to fans of historical fiction, but with a little pushing, the novel might also attract readers of forensic stories and tales of the dead, whether fiction or nonfiction. VOYA CODES: 4Q 3P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Will appeal with pushing; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2008, Roaring Brook/Macmillan, 256p.; Biblio., $16.95. Ages 12 to 18.

Hannah L. Jones, Teen Reviewer (VOYA, August 2008 (Vol. 31, No. 3))
In 1650 Anne Greene faced the hangman's noose for a crime she did not commit, and a miracle occurred. Hooper weaves the fictional and factual threads of this medical mystery with passion and grace. Her language is beautiful, and the plot evolves through deep characters about whom readers will truly want to know more. This reviewer highly recommends the novel to anyone in search of historical fiction or completely engrossing tales of secrets and betrayal. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2008, Roaring Brook/Macmillan, 256p.; Biblio., $16.95. Ages 12 to 18.