Book Review: Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt
Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt. © 2010 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780547069678. Hardback. Historical Fiction. 333 pages. $24.00 US. Source: copy from publisher.
Synopsis
Bess Southerns, an impoverished widow, lives with her children in a crumbling old tower in Pendle Forest. Drawing on Catholic ritual, medicinal herbs, and guidance from her spirit-friend Tibb, Bess heals the sick and foretells the future in exchange for food and drink. As she ages, she instructs her best friend, Anne, and her granddaughter, Alizon, in her craft. Anne ultimately turns to dark magic, while Alizon struggles to accept the power she has inherited and dreams of a simpler life. But when a peddler suffers a stroke after exchanging harsh words with Alizon, a local magistrate tricks her into accusing her family and neighbors of witchcraft. Suspicion and paranoia reach frenzied heights as friends and loved ones turn on one another and the novel draws to an inevitable conclusion.
Review
Though other books have tackled a fictitious account of Lancashire Witchcraft Trials of 1612, Mary Sharratt is the first author among them to give Mother Demdike and her granddaughter, Alizon Device, their own say. Daughters of the Witching Hill is told in two voices. The first section being narrated by Bess Southerns and the second by Alizon. Through this we see how both women viewed their world and their gift of cunning craft. Of course, some liberties were taken with the novel but this is what makes it historical fiction and not a boring textbook (the changes are clearly addressed in Afterword for those interested).
Mary writes with such a beautiful, yet subtle, poetic flair that I was utterly transfixed in this late sixteenth century world, and nearly read the book in one sitting. Take this line from page 126 for instance, “His was the might concealed in the tiny purple flowers of nightshade.” Gorgeously vivid. On par with her prose, is her painstaking attention to historical detail. Even the most minute of particulars is included to fully immerse the reader in Mother Demdike’s world and time.
Daughters of the Witching Hill is an engrossing and emotional look at a horrible period of upheaval and change in England’s history, all brought to a roaring crescendo by King James I and his vendetta against the supernatural and Catholicism.
Rating
5 black dogs out of 5
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