🎧 Featured Book of the Month ~ The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer

Phoenix
6 July 2023

Audible 9 hrs and 36 minutes

East Anglia, 1645. Martha Hallybread, a midwife, healer and servant, has lived peacefully for more than four decades in her beloved village of Cleftwater. She has not spoken a word in years.

One bright morning, Martha becomes a silent witness to a witch hunt, led by sinister new arrival Silas Makepeace. As a trusted member of the community, she is enlisted to search the bodies of the accused women for evidence. But whilst she wants to help her friends, she also harbours a dark secret that must never be revealed.

In desperation, Martha revives a poppet, a wax witching doll that she inherited from her mother, in the hope that it will bring protection. But the poppet's true powers are unknowable, the tide is turning, and time is running out.

🎧 My Review...

The seventeenth century was a dangerous time to be a woman, especially if you were poor and without a voice to stand up for yourself. Into the melting pot of witch frenzy the fictional East Anglian village of Cleftwater is plunged into disarray when the witch-finder Silas Makepeace comes a-calling. Determined to clear this once peaceful backwater of a coven of witches, Silas enlists the help of Martha Hallybread, a local woman who the village rely upon as their nurse, midwife and healer. Martha, terrified for the women who have been wrongly accused, is determined to use the skills she has inherited to help those who are unable to help themselves, however, fate has a nasty way of intervening.

Based around the true story of the East Anglian witch trials, which took place between 1645-47, this story emphasises the way in which local communities were left both divided and shattered, not only by the thought of having so many witches in one place, but also in families who were ripped apart by bigotry and hatred. As this wonderfully detailed story shows no-one was immune, particularly those innocent women who were held responsible for all the wrongdoings that befell a village, be it flood, famine, pestilence or death, witches were seen to be responsible and had to be eliminated.

I listened to the Audible version of this book and the narrator, Amanda Raison, did an excellent job of bringing all the characters to life, especially Martha whose silent voice is strong and vibrant and  also the creeping menace of the witch finders whose hateful bigotry made my blood boil. Fear and superstition is cleverly controlled and the hateful and fervent righteousness of the male villagers shows just how vulnerable were the accused women who had no means of defence.

I have long held a fascination for stories of those women who were so wrongly persecuted during the dangerous witch trials of the seventeenth century and The Witching Tide certainly didn't disappoint. It is beautifully written, mesmerising in detail and with a poetic lyricism which never detracts from the absolute power of the story and so, for that reason, I have no hesitation in making The Witching Tide my Featured Book of the Month for August.

About the Author

Margaret Meyer was born in Canada, grew up in New Zealand and now lives in Norwich, England. She was a publisher and literature developer before retraining as a mental health therapist, working in schools, prisons and addiction recovery centres as well as in private practice. Her writing includes essays, flash fiction and short stories, and in 2020 she completed an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. The Witching Tide, her first novel, was inspired by the events of the East Anglian witch hunt of 1645-7 and is dedicated to the more than 100 innocent women who lost their lives.

Twitter @Margaret_Meyer #TheWitchingTide

@Phoenix_Bks @orionbooks

His Fic Saturday ~ Tidelands by Philippa Gregory

On Hist Fic Saturday

Let's go back to ...1648

Simon&Schuster
20 August 2019

The Fairmile Series #1

Midsummer’s Eve, 1648, and England is in the grip of a civil war between renegade King and rebellious Parliament. The struggle reaches every corner of the kingdom, even to the remote Tidelands – the marshy landscape of the south coast.

Alinor, a descendant of wise women, crushed by poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Instead, she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life.

Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor’s ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbors. This is the time of witch-mania, and Alinor, a woman without a husband, skilled with herbs, suddenly enriched, arouses envy in her rivals and fear among the villagers, who are ready to take lethal action into their own hands.

What did I think about it..

The English Civil war pitted family against family, brother against brother and father against son, and everywhere there was discordance and suspicion, and for a woman, without a man to protect her, trying to eke out a living was a dangerous and lonely time. Alinor does what she can to keep a meagre roof above her head and tries with her limited resources to keep a close watch on her son and daughter, hoping that by some miracle she can continue, despite her husband's mysterious absence, to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. On Midsummer's Eve, when the dead are presumed to walk, Alinor waits by the church for news of her missing husband, but instead she meets James, a young man with dark and deadly secrets of his own, and from that fateful first meeting James and Alinor's fates are sealed. 

Following on from this author's acclaimed Plantagenet and Tudor series of novels, Tidelands sees a welcome return to more romantic historical fiction rather than based purely om the lives of Kings and Queens, and even though Charles I does make an appearance in the novel, this is about the Civil War after all, he doesn't dominate the story. Instead the narrative follows the relationship between Alinor and James and of the troubled times in which they are living.

As always the historical background is exceptionally good and the Sussex tidal lands are beautifully described with a melancholy air which lingers throughout the story. There is unrest and suspicion, particularly against Alinor, and many in this remote village of just a hundred souls view her skill as a healer with more than a touch of misgiving, and even when they visit for herbal cures they're never entirely comfortable with her.  

Within this first story there's a certain amount of scene setting which makes the story a little bit slow in places but that didn't stop me from enjoying the book, or of wondering where the story will go to in the next installment. I rather liked the romantic element which sets the scene for whatever is to come as the series progresses, and as this is only book one, I suspect we have a way to go before everything is Alinor's troubled life is laid to rest.

Years ago I read and enjoyed The Wise Woman by this author and there are the same elements of witchcraft and superstition in Tidelands which appeal to my imagination. And even though this book was first published in the summer time I do think it particularly lends itself to this time of year as we approach Halloween especially with all the superstition which still plays around witchcraft and magic.

Tidelands is published in hardback and is available from all good book retailers.

About the Author

Philippa Gregory is the author of many bestselling novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl, and is a recognised authority on women's history.

Twitter@PhilippaGbooks #Tidelands

@simonschusterUK