When Jessie Burton endorses a book, you know it’s going to be a real fire-cracker.
Protagonist Fleetwood’s seemingly idyllic life is thrown into disarray when she crosses paths with a ‘wise woman’, Alice, who she hires to be her midwife. This seems reasonable, except it quickly transpires that Alice's appointment is against the wishes of Fleetwood's husband, Richard.
Using my favourite literary trope, ‘men can be thoughtless idiots’, Richard sides with the wrong party in an all-consuming witch hunt, leaving a heavily pregnant Fleetwood to single-handedly prove Alice’s innocence at the witch trials.
Stacey Halls so convincingly builds Fleetwood’s upper-class world that it’s painful to watch it burn to the ground, but from the ashes we see a far bolder, braver, fiercer woman emerge.
Protagonist Fleetwood’s seemingly idyllic life is thrown into disarray when she crosses paths with a ‘wise woman’, Alice, who she hires to be her midwife. This seems reasonable, except it quickly transpires that Alice's appointment is against the wishes of Fleetwood's husband, Richard.
Using my favourite literary trope, ‘men can be thoughtless idiots’, Richard sides with the wrong party in an all-consuming witch hunt, leaving a heavily pregnant Fleetwood to single-handedly prove Alice’s innocence at the witch trials.
Stacey Halls so convincingly builds Fleetwood’s upper-class world that it’s painful to watch it burn to the ground, but from the ashes we see a far bolder, braver, fiercer woman emerge.