Recommendations from our site
“It’s based on real women and real events, but it’s told with an incredible contemporary energy. There are very compelling characters particularly in the person of Rebecca West, a real person. She and her mother Anne were among the very first victims that Hopkins and Stearne singled out. Anne West had form, I suppose. She’d been accused of being a witch several times in the past. So, an obvious target. But what The Manningtree Witches does is portray that mother-daughter relationship in such a beautiful and compelling way, showing how patriarchal institutions prise their closeness apart and contaminate their relationship. The Manningtree Witches is a very beautiful, very vivid book, and it brings across very clearly the plight of these women—and what happens when women are persuaded to disbelieve themselves.” Read more...
The Best Novels about Witches and Witch Hunts
Margaret Meyer, Novelist
“A darkly sardonic story based on the real-life witch craze that took place during the early years of the English Civil War, when a self-declared ‘Witchfinder General’ took it upon himself to root out malefaction, moral corruption and heresy among the women left behind by their soldier husbands, sons and neighbours. The prose is deeply sensual and immersive; darkly sardonic, written in modern English but bejewelled with period-appropriate vocabulary. Blakemore is a published poet, and that comes through very strongly. Highly recommended.” Read more...
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
“The poet A. K. Blakemore’s prose debut The Manningtree Witches is a historical novel based on the real-life 17th century witch trials in Essex, England, set during the civil war and at a time when Puritan attitudes prevailed. I’ve seen it described, rather deliciously, as Fleabag meets Hilary Mantel, and if you can resist that then you are made of sterner stuff than I. Shortlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize.” Read more...
Notable New Novels of Summer 2021
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
