It's a terrible, heartbreaking, but beautiful that had me completely gripped. I also felt duty bound to read this fictional story based on real events, to remember and honour the lives of those taken in witch hunts. When I first heard of The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, I was instantly intrigued. Inspired by the real events of the Vardø storm and the 1621 witch trials, The Mercies is a story of love, evil, and obsession, set at the edge of civilization. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God, and flooded with a mighty evil.Īs Maren and Ursa are drawn to one another in ways that surprise them both, the island begins to close in on them, with Absalom's iron rule threatening Vardø's very existence. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa sees something she has never seen before: independent women. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband's authority and terrified by it. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. Three years later, a sinister figure arrives. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm.

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave Published: 6th February 2020 | Publisher: Picador | Cover Designer: Katie Tooke | Source: Publisherįinnmark, Norway, 1617.

I received this proof for free from Picador for the purposes of providing an honest review.

The mercies book review