📖 Book Review ~ The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster

Mantle Books
12 May 2025

Thanks to the publisher for the copy of the book 

1724. In a tavern just outside Edinburgh, Maggie Dickson’s family drown their sorrows, mourning her death yet relieved she is gone. Shame haunts them. Hanged for the murder of her newborn child, passers-by avert their eyes from her cheap coffin on its rickety cart.

But as her family pray her soul rests in peace, a figure appears at the door.

It is Maggie. She is alive.

Bruised and dazed, Maggie has little time for her family’s questions. All that matters to her is answering this will they hang her…

📖  My Review..

When Maggie Dickson stumbles into The Sheep’s Heid Inn, in Edinburgh in 1724, wearing little more than a thin smock, she gives her family the shock of their lives, for Maggie was hanged earlier that morning and as her family drown their sorrows so they begin to contemplate what happens next. Will Maggie be hanged twice for the same crime?  As Maggie waits for the Edinburgh magistrates to debate the issue, she reflects on the events which brought her to her death.

Based on the true story of Half-Hangit Maggie, this beautifully imagined story gives us a fictional version of Maggie’s life, before, during, and after her hanging, from her rough upbringing with her family at Fisherrow Harbour in Musselburgh, to her early marriage, and subsequent escape to a border town, where the crime she is accused of takes place. Suffused with atmosphere Maggie's story resonates from the first page, time and place come so gloriously alive that it’s possible to walk in the footsteps of this strong woman, experiencing both the high, and incredible, low periods of her eventful life. The story flows so beautifully that I was totally invested in the story and couldn’t put the book away until I had discovered how this version of Maggie’s life played out. Gritty, and dark, in places, there is never a moment when the story doesn’t tug at the heart, from the harsh realities of life as a Fisherrow fishwife, to the damp and dismal condemned cells in Edinburgh’s notorious tollbooth, Maggie's life draws you in and doesn’t let go of your emotions until her fascinating story is told.

The Mourning Necklace is another masterclass in historical fiction from this talented writer who makes the history of ordinary folk come alive.

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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