Fear takes root in the women of Manningtree when the Witchfinder General
comes to town. Caught amidst betrayal and persecution, what must
Rebecca West do to survive? England, 1643. Parliament is battling the
King; the war between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers rages.
Puritanical fervour has gripped the nation, and the hot terror of
damnation burns black in every shadow. In Manningtree, depleted of men
since the wars began, the women are left to their own devices. At the
margins of this diminished community are those who are barely tolerated
by the affluent villagers - the old, the poor, the unmarried, the
sharp-tongued.
Rebecca West, daughter of the formidable Beldam
West, fatherless and husbandless, chafes against the drudgery of her
days, livened only by her infatuation with the clerk John Edes. But then
newcomer Matthew Hopkins, a mysterious, pious figure dressed from head
to toe in black, takes over The Thorn Inn and begins to ask questions
about the women of the margins. When a child falls ill with a fever and
starts to rave about covens and pacts, the questions take on a bladed
edge.
The Manningtree Witches plunges its readers into the
fever and menace of the English witch trials, where suspicion, mistrust
and betrayal ran amok as the power of men went unchecked and the
integrity of women went undefended. It is a visceral, thrilling book
that announces a bold new talent.
Harback version
The Manningtree Witches - A.K. Blakemore
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£10.99