It’s 1612 and Fleetwood Shuttleworth is a seventeen year old wife who has been warned that she’ll not survive the birth of her unborn child. Fleetwood’s husband, Richard is an older man, desperate for an heir.
Doing her best to keep the child, and her own life, Fleetwood hires a young midwife named Alice Grey who promises she can help her give birth to a healthy child.
This would all be fine had King James not been on a witch hunt and if those working for him hadn’t been so desperate to stay in his good books that they’ll do anything to bring in the witches, including accusing and trialing innocent women.
The background of this story is truth. Fleetwood Shuttleworth was a real person and she really was a young Mistress at Gawthorpe Hall. Witch Trials are something everyone knows about too, but until now I’ve never really thought much of them, pushing them to the back of my mind as something more mythical than reality. So reading “The Familiars” has really made me think about these women, and some men, and what they went through at the time.
The Familiars
I really enjoyed this spellbinding piece of Gothic historical fiction. I felt that this touched on some similar themes to a couple of my recent reads, “The Miniaturist” and “The Illumination of Ursula Flight“, and I couldn’t help but feel for the women involved in this terrible story.
The book is well paced, creating plenty suspense to keep you interested and wanting to come back to this story of courage, hope and determination. Debut author Stacey Halls explores themes of female friendship, marital love and gender norms. She looks at how women were thought of and treated at this time dependent on wealth and class, and also explores how quickly and without question, poor, often illiterate women were accused of being witches.
On top of all of this, the cover is beautiful so I’d definitely recommend you pick this one up!
Overall rating: “The Familiars” is a historical story set during the time of the Pendle Witch Trials. I really enjoyed this story and would recommend it for fans of Gothic fiction. Fleetwood Shuttleworth is a likeable character who I appreciated even more when I found out she was based on a real young woman. It’s 5 stars from me!
Doing her best to keep the child, and her own life, Fleetwood hires a young midwife named Alice Grey who promises she can help her give birth to a healthy child.
This would all be fine had King James not been on a witch hunt and if those working for him hadn’t been so desperate to stay in his good books that they’ll do anything to bring in the witches, including accusing and trialing innocent women.
The background of this story is truth. Fleetwood Shuttleworth was a real person and she really was a young Mistress at Gawthorpe Hall. Witch Trials are something everyone knows about too, but until now I’ve never really thought much of them, pushing them to the back of my mind as something more mythical than reality. So reading “The Familiars” has really made me think about these women, and some men, and what they went through at the time.
The Familiars
I really enjoyed this spellbinding piece of Gothic historical fiction. I felt that this touched on some similar themes to a couple of my recent reads, “The Miniaturist” and “The Illumination of Ursula Flight“, and I couldn’t help but feel for the women involved in this terrible story.
The book is well paced, creating plenty suspense to keep you interested and wanting to come back to this story of courage, hope and determination. Debut author Stacey Halls explores themes of female friendship, marital love and gender norms. She looks at how women were thought of and treated at this time dependent on wealth and class, and also explores how quickly and without question, poor, often illiterate women were accused of being witches.
On top of all of this, the cover is beautiful so I’d definitely recommend you pick this one up!
Overall rating: “The Familiars” is a historical story set during the time of the Pendle Witch Trials. I really enjoyed this story and would recommend it for fans of Gothic fiction. Fleetwood Shuttleworth is a likeable character who I appreciated even more when I found out she was based on a real young woman. It’s 5 stars from me!