21 June, 2010Daily Archives

Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt

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Summary:

Set in Lancashire, England, during the infamous witch trials of 1612, Daughters of the Witching Hill reveals the true story of Bess Southerns, aka Old Demdike, cunning woman, healer and the most notorious of the Pendle Witches, and of Alizon Device, her granddaughter, struggling to come to terms with her family’s troubling legacy. Though the name of the Pendle Witches lives on, few know the hard-hitting details of the witch-hunt which tore apart a community. Set in an era of religious intolerance, political strife, suspicion and social inequality, this haunting story of strong women and family love and betrayal is more relevant than ever.

My review:
It took me three false starts to read this book. It’s a heartbreaking story and not a happy one – but that’s not the reason I had so many false starts.

The writing in this book is fantastic. So fantastic it’s hard to read, hard to understand and takes an incredible amount of willpower to continue to read. At times it felt like my brain is hurting – but that was the reason the book was so fantastic. I felt as if I had been transported to the 1612 Lancashire witch trials and I could hear Old Demdike and Alizon speaking, could picture their misery, experience their hunger and feel their grief.

The sense of outrage I had toward the witness at the end of the book surprised me. I’ve never felt so much anger toward a character and am still battling that feeling as I type this.

If you are interested in witch trials, this is a book not to be missed. Instead of reading about the happenings of a witch this book takes you deep into the where’s and why’s of actions taken. You see through the eyes of an old woman and a young woman, two completely different perspectives on the same tragic circumstances.

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