Compelling and fascinating

Although this was a little slow to start, I found it to be very immersive and thoroughly entertaining. It tells the story of Fleetwood Shuttleworth, a 17 year old wife living at Gowthorpe House and praying that she survives her pregnancy. When she encounters a mysterious girl in the woods, she takes her on as a midwife amongst talk of witchcraft in the local town of Pendle. Based on true events, Halls has clearly done her research and the period flourishes feel authentic without bogging down the narrative flow. It is always welcome to see a story told from the point of view of women set in a time period when so many female voices went unheard or were systemically silenced and I think that Hall has done a great job at highlighting the issues surrounding this whilst also giving her protagonist the agency to act in her own right. Both Fleetwood and Alice are well drawn characters with nuance and depth and the friendship between the two women was the core of the story. This is a narrative very much rooted in the real world and those expecting a tale full of witchcraft and spells will probably be disappointed. What the book does so well is show that the motivations behind most witch trials also had very little to do with witchcraft and spells. All in all, this was a compelling and fascinating narrative that I would recommend to anyone with an interest in the period.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.