The main characters are well developed and intriguing. The writing style was a bit basic. The characters became confusing. I enjoyed the historical elements

I thought this might be a fairy tale from the picture on the cover because I didn't know what "Eyam" was. Eyam turns out to be a town in England that during the bubonic plague outbreak of 1665-6 quarantined themselves in a "cordon sanitaire", in a famous act of self-sacrifice, to prevent the spread of the plague. Outside vendors would bring their wares to a well outside the town and residents would leave payment (coins) in vinegar to disinfect them. 260 died during that time, including entire families.

They take some precautions, such as when the minister holds services outside. When he tells the town the decision to quarantine--

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So no, not a fairy tale by any means. This was an accurate historical retelling of the time. Years ago I read Year of Wonders and in my review of that I wrote, "This novel really didn't get into the nitty-gritty of the Plague, but more of how people acted around it. I think Brooks could have added another 100 pages of more details and storyline." Well, this book does that. It's almost too dry because it mentions death after death after death and needed some relief. I could see where a couple subplots might go [ such as how the undertaker, who was one of only two who recovered from the plague, was collecting everyone's treasures for payment. (hide spoiler)]

Supposedly the virus came from London in a package of cloth and the first victim was the tailor's helper.
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As others have mentioned, there are so many Elizabeths, Williams, Catherines, etc. so I didn't really keep up with who's who. There was a family named Rowbothams and Rowlands, and the finance of a main character was also Rowland. I'm sure it's accurate but also confusing. As for the title, I'd add the word "strong". I know I could never [actually dig graves--many graves--to bury my family. (hide spoiler)]

Thanks to Netgallery for a free advance reader's copy.

Despite the low reviews I really enjoyed this book. In 1665 a box from London brought more than cloth from plague-ridden London to the quiet village of Eyam in Derbyshire. For the next year the villagers had to learn to live with a silent enemy.

Three tells the story of three very different women in their courageous attempts to keep themselves and their loved ones alive as Eyam closed its doors to the outside world, instead facing the malevolent danger alone. Emmott Syddall, Catherine Mompesson and Elizabeth Hancock were each determined to live and the courage each of them found was as unique as the women themselves. Will 1666 bring salvation?

This work of historical fiction, written during a pandemic whilst reflecting on another, fuses creative imagining with historical fact to bring three female protagonists to life. Great storytelling!

While the subject matter--the plague--is timely, I'd recommend readers go to other books and even plays that imagine the inhabitants of Eyam in place of this book. Jenkins tries to create intrigue and drama in Three, but the characters and sense of place are flat and dull. Eyam's history is fascinating, but this book doesn't live up to the promise.

I really love the cover on this one. One of the best historical fiction books I’ve read in a long time. I was completely immersed in this book, struggled to put it down and was definitely transported whilst reading this. One of my top reads of the year for sure!

I was very intrigued by this book as it focuses on the plague that haunts Eyam, a small rural village the county of Derbyshire. I know nothing of Eyam nor the plague that had killed so many during the 1600s. This book is closely based on the real historical events and people living in Eyam.

This story follows the lives of three very different women and their experiences dealing with the plague in Eyam. Although they came from different social classes, their courage and love for their family was portrayed throughout the story. We have Catherine - the wife of the vicar, Emmott - a young bride to be and Elizabeth - who owned a farm further up from Eyam. Because the plague was getting out of control and there were still no cure at the time, Eyam was closed off. With limited resources and increasing number of the infected, these three women put down their fear and do the best they can for their friends and family.

Even though I enjoyed the story, I felt the plot was a little repetitive which is not the author’s fault as she has very limited characters and place to work with but what I would have loved to see more of would be the background of main characters in the story to help them stand out more. I found myself getting confused with whose perspective I was reading from because their perspectives were quite similar.

Reading this made me realise how far we have advanced in science and medicine today. These villagers didn’t know what this was or how to cure the plague. Death came fast and they can only stand by and watch their loved ones die one by one. This also reminded me of our current pandemic - how helpless and scared we were when we were struck with the first wave and then a second…if these brave women have the strength to pull through the plague, we all can too.

Thank you Netgalley and Cameron Publicity for the arc.

This has the makings of a good book but it feels somehow unfinished.

On the one hand it's a detailed and interesting account of people in the village of Eyam during the Bubonic Plague. It is clearly extremely well researched. Reading it, as we are in the middle of a pandemic (still, in December 2021, hoping this is the middle, not the start), was interesting. It reminds you that people are the same everywhere and in every time. Death of loved ones was as painful to people some 400 years ago as it is now, fear of illness as powerful. I wish that we had by now got rid of the superstitions of religion, but unfortunately that hasn't changed much either.

So 4 stars for the depiction of the characters and the psychological and social realism of the novel.

'Three' is weaker when it comes to pacing and detail. In a nutshell, it's too long. I love a big thick bolster of a novel as much as the next person, if it can hold my interest, but this could do with tighter editing.

Another weakness is its historical accuracy. Yes, sometimes sticking too close to the truth is not a virtue. It's not easy to follow who's who, due to so many people having the same names. I understand that this is factual, so clearly not the author's fault, but it would help if the author had found a device to make it easier to follow. Would it really have hurt the historical accuracy if she had changed some of the Elizabeths to Liz or Lizzy or Eliza. Or even use a different name altogether, possibly with an explanatory endnote?

Three: A Tale of Brave Women and the Eyam Plague
by Jennifer Jenkins

Quote:
The villagers were staying at home until the "deadly stalker hung up its cloak and scythe and left".

Synopsis:
"In 1665 a box from London brought more than cloth from plague-ridden London to the quiet village of Eyam in Derbyshire. For the next year the villagers had to learn to live with a silent enemy. Three tells the story of three very different women in their courageous attempts to keep themselves and their loved ones alive as Eyam closed its doors to the outside world, instead facing the malevolent danger alone. Emmott Syddall, Catherine Mompesson and Elizabeth Hancock were each determined to live and the courage each of them found was as unique as the women themselves. Will 1666 bring salvation?"

Review:
Based on actual events, Three is an extremely well-researched and beautifully written story of love, loss and family. Any book dealing with a plague will be heartbreaking and this book definitely does not disappoint. So many people perished in the small village of Eyam during 1665-66. Sometimes entire families died within days, or even hours, of each other. The plague is told through the eyes of three courageous women. Highly recommended.

I was gifted this advance copy by NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

While the premise of this book sounds like a very intriguing one, unfortunately I found it to be rather dull. The story is told through the viewpoint of three characters, however, it was all a bit 'samey', the same points were being rehashed time and again from each person, this alongside the unfortunate case that everyone back then had similar names, I found it incredibly tiring keeping track of which Elizabeth or Catherine etc was being talked about, and whether they were describing a new event about a new person or the same event as already described but from another viewpoint. It was all terribly slow and confusing. Can't recommend I'm afraid. Two stars purely because the idea is there, it was just executed poorly.

From the death of tailor’s assistant George Viccars, who was thought to have caught the plague from cloth brought in from London, & its horrific path through the village & the devastation it brought. This is the story of the plague village of Eyam told from the fictionalised view of three real women who lived through the time: Catherine Mompesson, wife of the newly appointed reverend, Emmott Syddall a young woman engaged to her sweetheart from the next village & Elizabeth Hancock, wife & mother from the outskirts of the village.

Before last year I’d never heard of the little Derbyshire village of Eyam & its comparison to the situation we’ve experienced over the past months.
This is the third book I’ve read about Eyam & definitely the best (maybe not for the writing but for the raw emotion it evokes) Real people, even if their lives have been fictionalised due to the few facts that are known about them.
It can get a little confusing as everyone in the village seems to be called Elizabeth, John or William but it does seem fittingly respectful to their memory that the author didn’t attempt to change these just to make it easier for the reader?

A DNF unfortunately from me – I found what I saw felt rather naively written (or at least that is what my even less forgiving mother would call it), and very much concentrating on the telling and not the showing. I didn't get to the parts other reviewers flagged up, where everybody has the same name and there's little work done to make sure we know one character from another, but I did get to see far too early on that the three strands would still be talking about each other, with the chapters regarding one woman's POV mentioning what we'd only just read on the previous pages.

I was surprised to learn the very first death was determined to be from London cloth while the body was still warm, as I thought that was discovered much later. But I think I would prefer to stick to general non-fiction regarding Eyam than this slightly twee drama. The foreshadowing of impending doom with the opening chapter of an affianced girl dreaming of twelve months time is quite ripely cheesy, too. One and a half stars, but rounded to two to prevent me from lumping it in with the really reprehensible, god-awful kind of book; this is certainly better than those, yet cannot be recommended.

Thankyou NetGalley, the publishers and the author, Jennifer Jenkins, for the opportunity to read Three in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I love historical fiction so I was excited about the thought of reading this book.
Unfortunately, I found it hard going.
I had trouble in connecting with the characters and keeping the various threads/characters straight in my head.
Sorry, but not a book for me.

Please note: this review does not include a star rating, as I have seen that the NetGalley version predates a lot of editing/proofreading. I think that had I read a more finalised version of this book, I would have enjoyed it much more.

I jumped at the chance to read this book. I grew up in Derbyshire, frequently visiting Eyam, and I loved the idea of reading a historical fiction set in the famous plague village. Even today it’s a fairly morbid place, with signs on each house listing who died from the plague there, and a museum filled with plague-ridden wax figures.

If anything, though, my prior knowledge and interest actually hindered my enjoyment of this book, as it was less of a fiction-set-in-Eyam and more a slightly-fictionalised-historical-account-of-Eyam. Not only are all of the characters real people, but you get the sense that every single person had to be accounted for. So many people either appear or are mentioned in the book that it felt like every name on the 1666 parish register got a look-in. While this did help to underline the devastation the plague had on the village, it also crowded the story and made it difficult to connect to our main characters. This also wasn’t helped by the fact that everyone had the same name. Obviously this wasn’t the author’s fault – there were only so many names to go around in 17th Century rural Derbyshire – but it made it incredibly difficult to keep track of who was who. I felt like I spent so much time trying to work out which Elizabeth was which that I was pulled out of the story.

I appreciate what the author was trying to do here, and I commend her for trying to bring the full depth of this tragedy to the forefront, but as a result we lost the opportunity for plot, or satisfying character arcs. (I don’t mind which one of those we get – a strong character-led story needs very little plot, if any.) The sections which did delve into the character of our three protagonists were very good, and I would have loved to see much more of them.

The three perspectives, while a little tricky to follow at times, worked well, and I did really like that the author took this opportunity to tell the stories of three women whose work was vital to their village community. That being said, we had new perspectives being introduced at the eleventh hour, with the last two chapters (and last two alone) being from completely new perspectives. Why not finish the book on one of the perspectives we have had all along? If needed, we could always have had an epilogue.

This book had so much potential, there were glimpses of a really great book but unfortunately the overall read did not come together as I had hoped.

I received a free copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own.

Since stumbling upon the story of Eyam in the midst of the first lockdown I've been somewhat obsessed, so of course when I found this book I just had to read it.

This story is compelling and heartbreaking and I was enthralled all the way through.

My one complaint is that I found the story hard to follow at times, and struggled to keep the characters straight while reading.

I was asked to write an honest review in exchange for a copy of Three. As it is based on historical events of the devastation of a tiny village during the 1665-6 plague, I was expecting a very intense depiction. It took me a good 60 pages before I could begin to actively engage with the characters as I felt it was a little slow and long-winded in building the daily life of the village However, the novel soon turned into a veritable page-turner as the infection touched every member of the village, pathos for each building through their determination, grit and unbearable grief, which could be synonymous with the selflessness of front line workers in our present-day pandemic.

This book denotes the plague of 1665, which came from London, possibly nestled amongst cloth travelling from the city, and settled down into the town of Eyam. I have read another book in the past that featured the same setting, and was always impressed by the fact that the town decided to shut off their town, condemning themselves in order to stop the plague from spreading further. Reading about the catastrophe now, in the midst of our own rampaging pestilence, makes their sacrifice all the more poignant and brave, especially given the fact that they had no idea how the plague spread and very little by means of protecting themselves.

As an added note, I really like how the author didn't shy away from describing the illness, taking the reader along from house to house as family after family succumbed to the plague. It was a heartbreaking affair, and helped to show the enormity of it as dozens died one after the other.

Finally, I was really struck by this passage in the novel: "But Mary Cooper was not simply a broken version of herself, she was a new incarnation of courage sealed with sorrow, like a butterfly crushed inside its cocoon, and though Catherine knew she would emerge again in time, it would be with crumpled wings." I find it a good descriptor of the grief people feel in general, and must have surely felt then, also.

The book might have been best suited by the addition of a page at the front (or back) denoting the members of families (at least those most important), given all those with similar or same names. It also sorely needed editing--dropped and misspelled words littered the text. I give the book a higher grade because of the research the author did, peppering in different recipes used to stave off the plague, detailing those who lived and died, and describing the village and the layout of the homes.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Oooof. This was a slog. Hard to get into the writing, lots of typos/errors, and super stale dialogue. Not a fan, unfortunately.

In a Nutshell: If you want to know what happened in Eyam during the plague and how the citizens rallied together in those hard times, this is a great option. However, if you expect a well-structured and well-written book, you might end up disappointed. (‘might’ is the key word here.)

Keeping a safe distance from others, staying at home as far as possible, dealing with deaths of family members while still surviving for the sake of those alive, understanding the importance of hygiene, the hope that the new year would bring a fresh start, the disappointment at some people profiteering from others’ struggles, simply living in hope day by day, growing closer to God, going farther from God,… all are aspects that are familiar to us since the last eighteen odd months. But we have been lucky in two ways: 1. Science is advanced enough to tell us the behaviour of viruses, and 2. Technology is advanced enough to help us keep in tough not just with near and dear ones but also to stay abreast of the latest news. Imagine going through a similar pandemic in the 17th century. This book shows you how life would have been under a viral scourge in that era.

Story:
Eyam (pronounced 'eem') is a small rural village in the county of Derbyshire. In 1665, a tailor’s assistant from this village received a bundle of cloth from London. Unfortunately, London was already heavily plague-afflicted at that time, and this material, unknown to anyone, was contaminated with infected fleas. When the assistant hung out the damp cloth to dry, he got afflicted with the disease and became the first Eyam resident to die. This was just the beginning of the ordeal in Eyam of what we now know as the Bubonic Plague, or the Black Death. Over the next fourteen months, at least 260 villagers died from the deadly disease. Many families were completely wiped out, while many others had just a single survivor. Of those who contracted the disease, all except two died. In the face of this human devastation, the two rectors of the village took a brave decision: they closed off the borders of the village so that no one could enter or exit it, thereby stopping the “plague seeds” from spreading to neighbouring villages and saving them from peril.
Three women who lived in the village during this scary period were twenty three year old Emmott Syddall (engaged, soon to be married; dutiful, loyal and loving), twenty seven year old Catherine Mompesson (wife of the village rector; delicate in health but strong in her faith), and Elizabeth Hancock (staying on the outskirts of the village with her husband and six children; considers her distance from the village a blessing; practical and hardworking.) We see the impact of the plague mainly from the third-person perspectives of these three women.

I wasn’t aware of the history of Eyam, though I have read about the ghastly plague that killed so many in England. This story turned out to be really hard on my feelings. To constantly see people dying left, right and centre put me on the verge of an emotional breakdown. I was initially upset with the author at killing off so many characters pitilessly, but during my post-reading research on the actual events, I found out that the three principle women (and the rest of the characters, every single one of them) were actual residents of Eyam, and the author had been faithful in her research and factual in her death toll. That depressed me even more. That all those horrendous events had actually happened was devastating to learn.

The three main female characters are intriguing. Each of them has a distinct personality and a distinct lesson to teach us. Their fears, their strength, their grief, their uncertainties…all were portrayed beautifully. I don’t know if I can call them “inspirational”; to me, they were just ordinary women caught in extraordinary circumstances, and they faced their situations the best way they could. My favourite of them was Elizabeth Hancock. Oh God! I wish I could tell you her story, but I won’t as I don’t want to give out spoilers. (Of course, her story is available online too, if you are really curious.) But the way she handled whatever she had to handle, I haven’t sobbed so much during any scene in any book, ever! (And I’m not even a habitual crier while reading!) She is one of the bravest women I’ve read about.

I was amazed by the parallels in the human situation under the viral scourge between the 17th century plague and the 21st century covid-19 pandemic. So many of the circumstances seem to overlap and there were times when I forgot the era and wondered why they weren’t wearing a mask before stepping out. The main difference lay in the invocations to God for help. The 1660s was an era where science was still learning how to handle viruses and religion dominated human thinking. And that shows in the way the villagers used biblical verses and their faith to pray for a better and safer future, and the trust they had in their rectors’ decision of “cordon sanitaire”, the self-quarantined lockdown of the village. In fact, this would work great as a Christian fiction. (There is a sex scene between a married couple but it is pretty mild, and not at all explicit. It is written more to depict the emotional upheaval of the characters than physical passions.)

As I said at the start, if you just want to know more about the plague through a fictionalised version of the facts, this would be a wonderful book. However, in terms of its writing, the book left me quite dissatisfied. I think (though I am not sure) that this is a debut indie work. And that shows in the writing style. There is a fair bit of repeated content and a constant cross-referencing to the previous deaths, all of which make the content tedious. (The almost 450 pages of death and grief doesn’t help matters.) Add to this the fact that we see the same events from three perspectives, and this too adds to the repetition. The editing really need to be a lot tighter, and proof-reading stricter.

Furthermore, the number of deaths becomes too much to take in after a point. (Sorry, I know this sounds like a really silly thing to say because these people actually died and it is a book about the plague after all. But there were so many names being mentioned again and again in the death toll that it became saturating after some chapters.)

Finally, (and this point isn’t the author’s fault), there are many repeated names in the book, the most frequent of which was Elizabeth. Emmott's mother is Elizabeth. One of Emmott's sisters is also Elizabeth. Catherine's daughter is Elizabeth. Not to forget Elizabeth Hancock, the third narrative voice of the book. And a couple more Elizabeths in the village. There are also multiple versions of John, William, Catherine, Richard and so on. I'm not sure if people in the 17th century had only a limited stock of Biblical/royal names that they keep reusing, but as a 21st century reader, it sure was confusing to follow. I was very grateful to be reading this on Kindle as the search button proved invaluable in keeping track of who was who. Of course, these are all actual names of the villagers from that time so the author shouldn’t be censured for this overlap in names.

All in all, the research in the book was immaculate and praiseworthy. But the graphic and repeated depictions of death become very intense to take in. (especially as there are many young children who were victims too.) I might have felt differently if we were still in the good old days (circa 2019), but reading this book during a global pandemic results in very personal and severe emotions. I love the book for the information and insight it provided to me, but I really wish the writing were crisper.

3.5 stars from me, rounding up to 4 for the mind-blowing research and the genuine efforts to bring this story to us as authentically as possible.


My thanks to Cameron Publicity & Marketing Ltd and NetGalley for the ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review.

This book deals with the village of Eyam during the plague years 1665/66. The author selected as her protagonists three women who existed during that time, as evident from the preserved parish register: Catherine, wife of the vicar, Emmott, a young bride-to-be, and Elizabeth, the smith's wife. Jenkins also followed a strict historical chronology as pertains to time lines and deaths from infection. In these two selections, heros and chronology, lie both the strengths and weaknesses of this tale:

I found that the chronology and, especially the choice of protagonists made for a tediously repetitive account for much of the book. It led to endless re-stating of the same facts by the different protagonists and, as they were similarly altruistic characters, to very similar reactions and sentiments. I found this painfully tedious at times, and wondered how the liveliness of the book could have been enhanced by including the perspective of an anti-hero, like that of the apparently much reviled sexton and gravedigger, Marshall Howe. I also wondered about the negative human traits that hardly appeared to have surfaced among the population of this sizeable village. No dissenters to the imposed lockdown, no nastiness, selfishness, denial, cruelty... Living through a pandemic now, we know that fear and grief can manifest themselves in many ways and I suspect that humans in the 17th century were not so different from our current selves. The tameness and generalized saintliness of the villagers made the book bland and unreal to me, and I would have appreciated some poetic licence in creating a more lively narrative.
A rather less important qualm of mine was the faulty proofreading, which allowed missing words, misspellings, and an unfinished sentence at the end of chapter 26.
However, the book has many excellent parts to commend it. For one, Jenkins' research was immaculate. This applies to details of Eyam, the village, chronology, knowledge and superstitions regarding the plague at the time, as well as the use of herbal medicines to combat the disease. Throughout, she shows sensitive insight into the fears and grief of the three protagonists. Add to that competent, fluent prose and compassionate, but vivid descriptions of illness, tremendous physical and emotional suffering, fear, and death.
Overall, having read both facts and fiction about Eyam before, I expected more from this book, but nevertheless enjoyed its portrayal of three remarkable historical women.
My thanks go to NetGalley and the publishers for an eARC of this novel; the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Three covers the 1665-1666 plague in the village of Eyam and follows three different women and their experiences with the disease. Eyam is a real village and the characters are based off of real people who lived and died during that time and Three provides a glimpse into their lives.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't know that this book was actually closely based off of real historical events and people. I also didn't realize that Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks is based off of the same village until the village decided to self-isolate and I recognized all of the parallels. In my defense, Three is more historically based and uses the names of real people while Year of Wonders took more narrative liberties and books about the Black Death hit a lot of the same beats (i.e. people continuously dying horribly and grieving loved ones).

If you are AT ALL sensitive regarding death, illness, and grief, this book is absolutely not for you. There are a lot of graphic depictions of death, especially of children and spouses, that are upsetting. I knew what I was getting into after reading the title and I recommend going in with the same attitude.

Reading this book during a pandemic certainly made things more interesting. I have read books about the Black Death before, but not in the past year and a half. I think the story affected me more because of this and I found myself hit harder by the deaths of characters than I might have been in different times. Debilitating plague for an extended period of time and isolation did not seem so far off as it once did. I like that this book made me reflect on how I have been impacted in the by the pandemic and just how much worse the villagers of Eyam had it.

Three is meant to depict three (surprise) women of different social classes and their experiences through the plague. I thought that the families were of similar-ish standing and wondered why there wasn't more variation until I got to the end, did more research, and realized that they are based off of the stories of real people in a small village that ended up getting closed off. It makes more sense now that Jenkins was more limited in choosing characters and I think that they did a good job choosing three notable figures on which to focus this novel.

I felt like the plot got pretty repetitive, which seems like a stupid comment for a novel based on plague, but I would have enjoyed a little more background about the characters to help them stand out from one another. I sometimes forgot which perspective I was reading from because the POVs were pretty similar, particularly for the older women. This made it more difficult for me to notice how their experiences were different when they were all caring for infected people and burying friends and family. Also, this is absolutely a critique of history and not of the book, but most of the characters have the same name (Elizabeth, Katherine, Anne, John, Richard, etc.) and it made it very hard to keep them straight. I would have appreciated a little more name creativity, early modern England!

Overall, if you are ready to read a book about the terrible effect of a historical plague, I recommend this book. 3.45 stars rounded down to 3. Thank you to NetGalley for the electronic advanced reader's copy of this book!


cw: death, dying, illness