Stylish and raw … seizes the reader ’ s sympathy and does not let go .”— Anne Enright, Booker Prize – winning author of The Gathering I always find books based on the witch hunts of the 1600s so fascinating and heartbreaking and this book was no exception. This is one of the most unflinching novels I’ve read, it doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of what happened to women up and down the country. Meyer even writes about a male character Inspired by the East Anglia Witch Trials, Margaret Meyer's novel is a harrowing experience from start until finish where women are persecuted and demonised by the patriarchy for the most base accusations such as bad weather or poor crops.

The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer | Waterstones

MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window) This book is a great example of what I love so much about historical fiction: the ability to connect the reader emotionally to events long past that otherwise remain so removed from us.

Set over the course of just a few weeks that will forever change history, The Witching Tide delivers powerful and psychologically astute insights about the exigencies of friendship and the nature of loyalty, and heralds the arrival of a striking new voice in fiction. Reminiscent of both The Scarlet Letter and Hamnet... extremely well-executed historical fiction.” — Jezebel Meyer’s saga of prejudicial ignorance and the horrors that result from innuendo campaigns is replete with period and chilling atmospheric detail. Meyer’s narrative illuminates a dark historical period (and cautions against its re-creation).” — Kirkus East Anglia, 1645. Martha Hallybread, a midwife, healer, and servant, has lived peacefully for more than four decades in her beloved coastal village of Cleftwater. Rendered voiceless as a child, Martha has not spoken a word in years. There was a heated seven-way bidding war in the UK for Margaret Meyer’s first novel The Witching Tide, which is a transportive reading experience set in the dark heart of the witch trials that took place in East Anglia, 1645-47. I zoomed Margaret to talk to her from her home in Norwich, England on the cusp of the book’s release in New Zealand (where Meyer grew up).

The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer | Hachette UK

East Anglia England Martha Hallybread was a midwife, healer & servant to Christopher ( AKA Kit ) she was born mute & has lived in her home town of Clearwater a coastal town, where everyone knew Martha but never heard her. I really have never read anything like this before and I had such mixed emotions reading it. First, the good. The author does a beautiful job describing the scenes, emotions and abject terror these women feel being rounded up. Her prose is beautiful and I genuinely felt sad in some parts, so that shows I connected with the characters. Well done there. Powerless to protest, Martha is enlisted to search the accused women for “devil’s marks.” She is caught between suspicion and betrayal; between shielding herself or condemning the women of the village. In desperation, she revives a wax witching doll that belonged to her mother, in the hope that it will bring protection. But the doll’s true powers are unknowable, Martha harbors a terrible secret, and the gallows are looming… Immersive… The author offers a stirring depiction of the selfishness, revenge, and fear behind the accusations. This evocative narrative is sure to pique readers’ curiosity about the witch trials.” — Publishers Weekly Overall, this story captures the injustice and savagery of witch trials in a compelling prose and the creation of interesting characters.Despite what the synopsis claims, there are no hints of Margaret Atwood here. Yes, the story is devastating, but how could it not be? This does not mean it does anything beyond the superficial. For a historical lesson, this could be a win, but as a novel, it will not be memorable for me. The accused women deny their charges, but no one believes them. The witch trials are a sham. The scales of justice are already tipped, the women indicted on manufactured evidence and false charges by Makepeace, the searchers and vindictive neighbours looking for plausible explanations for illness, death and misfortune. As she had feared, Martha, too, is eventually arrested. At first glance, the premise of "The Witching Tide" was intriguing for me as most novels I've read on the topic of witch hunts were focused on Salem, Massachusetts and not any of the earlier movements that happened in other countries. The novel is told from the Martha's perspective, giving readers a chance to see into her thoughts and memories. While I did find eye-opening the sheer ridiculousness of "evidence" that was presented that led to the death of so many women, I had difficulty getting immersed into the story. The writing style felt stark and rigid at times, and Martha as a character was hard to pin down. The storyline as well wasn't terribly unique as the ending is fairly well known and predictable.