The Manningtree Witches: 'the best historical novel... since Wolf Hall'

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An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored. Witch hunts took flight during years which saw popular revolts, epidemics and war. In the mid sixteenth century, treatise on witchcraft began to multiply across Europe. After 1550, there were laws and ordinances legalising the persecution of witches and making witchcraft a capital offence. In The Manningtree Witches, the women’s accusers are Puritans, but across Europe both the Catholic Church and its Inquisition and Protestant nations, countries who were at war with each other, united in their persecution of witches. We see through Rebecca how impossible it is to avoid accusations of witchcraft once placed: how for example she asks can she provide an alibi if she can apparently be in two places at once via transportation, or supposedly carry out her nefarious schemes at a distance via invisible imps; and how she asks can she testify truthfully to save herself when “I can say again and again, a thousand times.. that I am not a witch and have not traffic with the Devil not his spirits, and it will account for nothing. But if I say once that I am, then it counts for everything” Before, he was just Tarare. Well-meaning and hopelessly curious, born into a world of brawling and sweet cider, to a bereaved mother and a life of slender means. The 18th Century is drawing to a close, unrest grips the heart of France and life in the village is soon shaken. When a sudden act of violence sees Tarare cast out and left for dead, his ferocious appetite is ignited, and it’s not long before his extraordinary abilities to eat make him a marvel throughout the land.

The time it took me to read this book is no reflection on how much I liked it, it’s just that other books got in the way. This book was recently included on a very impressive longlist for the Desmond Elliott Prize for Debut fiction which prompted me to read it. Why has AK Blakemore chosen to write the other characters in the third-person? What effect does this have on our relationship to them? Puritans sought to reform themselves by purifying from their churches the last vestiges of Roman Catholic teaching and practice. It was a movement that gained popular strength in the early 1600s, especially in East Anglia. AK Blakemore is also a poet, and The Manningtree Witches has been praised for its “poetic” writing style.Historic England. "Methodist Church (1240124)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 23 July 2023.

For centuries, the people of the British Isles practiced Paganism, a Nature-based spirituality that was bolstered by the influx of the Celts and promulgated through local belief and folklore until the changing religions of the Roman Empire sought to extinguish it.

Manningtree is a town and civil parish in the Tendring district of Essex, England, which lies on the River Stour. It is part of the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. [2] Smallest town claim [ edit ] Thank you NetGalley, A.K. Blakemore, and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to read this book, the audiobook will be released September 23rd! That tolerance was lost when King James I, a staunch Catholic and vehement critic of the Occult, ascended the English throne in 1603. Within a year, he had sponsored yet another in a succession of British laws aimed at suppressing perceived anti-Christian acts. The Witchcraft Statute of 1604 ruled that “witchcraft” was a crime punishable by death. More significantly, it prescribed that guilt in such cases was no longer to be decided by the ecclesiastical courts but by the courts of the common law. While this change in jurisdiction afforded the accused some semblance of a trial before punishment, the burden of proof was lower. Witnesses could be called against the accused where the only evidence was hearsay.

Manningtree is on Holbrook Bay, part of the River Stour in the north of Essex. It is the eastern edge of Dedham Vale. Fear and destruction take root in a community of women when the Witchfinder General comes to town, in this dark and thrilling debut. This beautifully written historical novel won the Desmond Elliott Prize and explores the witch trials of 17th century East Anglia with a humane grace. Sandra Newman said it was ‘not just the best debut novel I’ve read in years, it’s the best historical novel I’ve read since Wolf Hall ’.Manningtree is part of the electoral ward called Manningtree, Mistley, Little Bentley and Tendring. The population of this ward at the 2011 census was 4,603. [10] Geography [ edit ] River Stour near Manningtree