The Witchfinder's Sister

Alice’s husband has been killed in an accident and she has no choice but to return home to live with her brother, Matthew. There are few other choices for a woman alone in 17th century England. When Alice left home, her brother was an introverted young man with a terribly scarred face, the result of a childhood accident. Now he is a man to be feared, a man with powerful friends who is growing more powerful himself everyday. Matthew is compiling a list of women, women he believes guilty of witchcraft. As the list of women grows and they are imprisoned and “tested” to prove or disprove their innocence, Alice realizes her brother has become a monster. This book places firmly in the 17th century, in a time and place where women were accused of terrible things because they were pretty or ugly, because they had children or didn’t have children, because they were married or unmarried, because they were young or because they were old. Because they were women. A profoundly moving and unforgettable boo

I love a good meaty literary historical novel with a strong female protagonist and the Witchfinders sister ticks every box for me. It is a stunning and highly accomplished literary debut, a most wonderful atmospheric read which will stay with me long after I close the pages.

We meet Alice Hopkins in 1645 when she is returning home to stay with her younger brother, after she has been suddenly and tragically widowed. Relationships with her brother have been somewhat strained since she left home to marry for love, beneath the status expected of her, a marriage to the adopted son of a former servant of her family.

The book made me really think about how limited the choices were for women several centuries ago when without a man to protect them they would be reviled and penniless. Thank goodness I was born in the present day, for all my passion for history and reading about the past, time travel through books like this is the closest I want to be to ever being in as helpless a situation as Alice finds herself.

Alice is desperate to avoid becoming completely homeless, she is carrying her late husbands child, a final reminder of the love they shared, but it’s difficult for her to even tell her sibling as she finds her shy and diffident younger brother Matthew greatly changed, both in the company he keeps and the secretiveness of his business and his manner and attitude towards her (and other women). She must do all she can to placate him and smooth things over between them just to keep a roof over her head.

Like when they were both children, he still keeps a journal but now he doesn’t record childish hopes and dreams and he no longer wants a big sister to protect the scarred and fearful child he once was. The man he has become is writing things about the neighbourhood women, recording their details and blaming them for ills which have befallen menfolk. The quiet clergyman is no more and a vengeful and obsessive Matthew expects his dutiful sister to support him in his quest.

Alice befriends Grace, a maid in the household and tries to keep her head down whilst Matthew pursues his ever widening witch hunt from which no woman seems to be immune. Her unease turns to dismay when she finds even her own mother in law is on Matthews radar.

Alice is a fabulous character, with whom I had huge empathy, yet at times I almost began to dislike her, until I made myself wear her shoes, think like her and realise, that some of her choices, although difficult to understand weren’t even options, much of the time she was stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea.

This is a novel with its feet firmly embedded in factual events. The story of the notorious witchfinder general is haunting and harrowing and completely unputdownable.

The viewpoint of watching this horror unfold from the point of view of a helpless bystander, herself at risk from the man who is grown from her beloved little brother is jaw dropping.

My heart ached for Alice and the dilemma she finds herself in and there is a bone juddering, brilliant line right at the end of the book that made my blood run ice cold!