📖 Book Review ~ The Repentants by Kate Foster

Pan MacMillan 
Mantle
28 May 2026

My thanks to the publisher for the invitation to read this book 

St Monans, Fife, Scotland 1790. 

Two women are forced to publicly repent in church, one for adultery the other for breaching the sabbath. Wealthy housewife, Florrie, and salt serf, Eliza, form a quick and unusual bond over their mutual humiliation. So when Florrie's husband decides she must accompany him on a trade venture to Iceland, she insists Eliza comes as her maid.

Far from home, isolated and fearful, the two women grow ever closer. Then Florrie's husband reveals his sinister plan: he will leave her in Iceland, banished for the shame she has cast upon him. Florrie must escape, but when she turns to Eliza for help she realizes nothing is quite as it seems.

📖 My Review..

Twenty year old Florrie Aitken  yearns for passion in her marriage but sadly her husband is not the man to provide it as Jonny is too self absorbed and far too preoccupied with his own sense of importance. After a disastrous encounter, with a man who is not her husband, Florrie is made to repent in public alongside another young woman who is being punished for a different transgression. Unlikely though it seems, Florrie and Eliza share a common bond and it is this connection which will ultimately be the saving of them.

Well written, with impeccable research, and a real sense of time and place, The Repentants is a compelling story about how women were regarded, not just by men but also by other women and of their survival when the odds were stacked against them. From the cloistered atmosphere of an insular Scottish coastal town, to the bleakness of an Icelandic seascape, the raw, and often brutal, treatment of women is highlighted. The late eighteenth century world and women’s place in it, regardless of circumstances, comes alive. Throughout the story there is a real sense of injustice, and as each of the female characters start to assert themselves so the balance of power starts to subtly shift away from the men who would do them harm.

About the Author

Kate Foster has been a national newspaper journalist for over twenty years. Growing up in Edinburgh, she became fascinated by its history and often uses it as inspiration for her stories. The Maiden won the Bloody Scotland Pitch Perfect 2020 prize for new writers. She lives in Edinburgh with her two children.

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