The Manningtree Witches by A.K Blakemore is a stunning tale of the Manningtree witch trials orchestrated by infamous witchfinder general Matthew Hopkins. Set in Essex, England in 1643, the story centres on the lives of a number of women who, in the fever of the times, come to be suspected of witchcraft.

Rebecca West, the young protagonist, is our eyes and ears in the town, and through her we meet some of the story’s prolific ‘witches’, some of whom (such as Elizabeth Clarke) were the real victims of Hopkin’s assault on the women of the town. Her mother, her friends and her mothers friends all experience the suspicion in some form, each dealing with it in their own special way. Some enact a thrilling performance of possession by evil forces while others, with little other choice, succumb to the intrusions, interrogations and probing it was believed necessary in order for maleficum to be declared.

Through it’s imps, charms and rituals that lurk in the shadows of this text, in the marginal species of dreams and twisted gossip, this novel reveals something even darker and more insidious than the believed witchcraft itself. That is, the systematic exploitation and punishment of women, especially those that refuse to subscribe to the patriarchal and puritan regimes of the town.

This is a completely thrilling and original take on a moment in English history that is little discussed. Blakemore demonstrates a masterful use of language to create a narrative that is both warm and cheerful in it’s depictions of rebellious women while simultaneously terrifying.

This is a brilliant read, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

*A big thank-you to A.K. Blakemore, Granta Publications, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
A superbly written novel set in the 1640s when the Civil War has just begun and when witch hunts continue. The novel based on real events, focuses on a group of women who through their independence are feared and despised in a small community. When a witchfinder, the famous Matthew Hopkins, appears, they are persecuted, accused of witchcraft and taken to Colchester for a trial.
The novel is superbly written, atmospheric and with the feel of dread and helplessness. The language is not easy to follow but it definitely adds to the authenticity of the period. The characters feel natural and not modern as is often the case with historical fiction. Descriptions of Essex are poetic and it does not surprise as the author is a poet and this is her debut novel. And a remarkable debut!

A sad but joyous historical and read (with the occasional dip into a large dictionary) that gripped me from page one..

The book is set in the early 1640s in a village in rural Essex, bordering Suffolk, and with a background of the English Civil War - although this conflict does warrant only a few references.

The village of Manningtree is beautifully described using much 'old' English and some of the inhabitants ( many being extremely poor) are accused of being witches and there are witch hunts of real life conducted by the Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins.

The fabulous imagery of their lives, the village life (yes, even a pub!) and relationships was so good the whole book has to be five stars. Loved it!

Thanks to Net Galley and Granta Publications for the chance to read and review.

Rich and detailed, this beautifully written book gives a voice to one of the women accused in England’s seventeenth century witch trials. It perfectly captures a sense of panic and loss of control as the villagers get whipped up into a frenzy and the accusations begin to fly. The book explores the way that any woman who didn’t perfectly fit with society’s view of how a woman should behave was at risk, as well as the hypocrisy of those who persecuted them.

In Manningtree, 1643, women have been largely left to their own devices thanks to the English civil war that has depleted the male population. The arrival of pious newcomer Matthew Hopkins causes a stir in the community, especially when he begins to ask questions about the women who live on the margins of the town. Rebecca West, living alone with her mother, the formidable Beldam West, can see where this line of enquiry is going to lead, but is powerless to do anything to stop it.

Based on the real Essex witch trials and featuring historical figures such as the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, The Manningtree Witches is a fictionalised version of events surrounding the massive witch hunts that took place in England in the seventeenth century. As such, some of the content is quite shocking and the general outcome is exactly what you’d expect – a lot of innocent women being hanged for no good reason other than rumour and superstition.

It isn’t the best witch-trial story I’ve read (I preferred The Witchfinder’s Sister and The Familiars, to name just a couple) but it is a good story nonetheless. The story focusses on Rebecca West, who is a decent character but the inevitability of the plot did take away some opportunities for her to really shine as a character. I didn’t feel that she did very much at all to move the plot along, and didn’t do much to help herself until she was presented with no choice. That being said, I did enjoy the way the book ended.

One thing this novel does do well is to show how mob culture can so easily spiral out of control and how women are pitted against each other. The prose and world-building is quiet poetic and immersive, and Blakemore does an excellent job of conveying the threatening mood of the time.

An atmospheric and intriguing read.
I am always curious when I see a novel involving Witch trials and so was immediately drawn to this book, I was not disappointed.

An atmospheric, enthralling and well written fictional retelling of a historical witch trial, I loved it and the great women characters.
The authors delivers a story that mixes historical and fictional characters and did a great job in describing how people lived and the witchfinder Matthew Hopkins, a great villain that you cannot help hating.
The historical background is well researched and vivid, the character development excellent.
It's strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This was a great read! A fantastical historical novel, focussing on witch trials during the civil war. The characters were so interesting, especially Rebecca. I hope to read more from this author in the future! 5 stars from me!

I have read a few novels about witches and witch hunts recently, but none with this grasp of place, history and character. The settings are beautifully described, even when they are cold and bleak, and the variety of characters, mainly women, suffering in the poverty of the village, are very well drawn. The political machinations of the changes at the time, with the civil war and anti Catholic sentiment, really give a depth to the struggles of Rebecca West. One for lovers of more literary novels, but still with a great plot.

I grew up in Blackburn, a town just 20 minutes from Pendle Hill. A place synonymous with witch trails, and I went to university in Lancaster where the Pendle witches were ultimately charged. It's fair to say I've always had a big interest in this period of history and it's fair to also say that this novel, The Manningtree Witches really impressed me.

Beyond it's main hook of being an historical novel about witch trials in Essex what this novel really has going for it, is it's strong sense of place and it's great characterisations. Rebecca West, the main character is a great heroine, whose inner self is drawn beautifully through her interactions with her mother, the townsfolk and the Witchfinder himself. The supporting cast are also well drawn though, not least Hopkins himself , a man driven by his puritan values but also conflicted in his thoughts and desires.

The setting is gritty and bleak, such were the times, each described in lovely prose - the filth of the jails, the poverty of the people; the backdrop of the civil war. All are beautifully rendered and it all serves the purpose of dragging the reader into the time period. It is not always a comfortable read, but then these were not comfortable times.

It's a slow burner, but it isn't a slow read - there's a palpable sense of tension through the book and the need to know exactly what the outcome will be for Rebecca will keep you reading to the end.

I really, really enjoyed this book. Some lovely poetic language, a interesting and beautifully drawn setting and some excellent characterisations made this a pleasure to read.

Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for a review copy of this title.

I really struggled to connect with this story - I was looking forward to getting into something "witchy" but it just didn't pull me in. I'm hoping it might have just been a case of the wrong time for this book and will endeavour to pick it up again before publishing any review.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. I love historical fiction and reading about witches and witchcraft so this book should’ve been right up my alley. However, the writing was just too hard going to get through. I found some parts so overly descriptive I had to read them again to get to the point. Not something you can relax, after a long day, and read.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the eARC.

I have read many novels set in both this period and the Jacobean period about the hunting down of witches, including the novel on which the 1968 Vincent Price ‘Witchfinder General’ film was based.

Two aspects differentiate this version of the story for me. Firstly is the historical context. In England, 1643, the Civil War is raging and atrocities are being committed on both sides. The Roundheads are not quite the democrats we might like to imagine them. The Puritans bring an overwhelming sense of sin and damnation with them.

The old verities have been overturned. How can churches stripped of their religious symbols provide protection from evil? How can men who have gone off to fight protect the wives and daughters left behind? The divide between the comfortably off and the marginalised grows wider. Suspicion and betrayal stalk the community and to be any combination of solitary, poor, old or a woman is to risk hatred.

Secondly the heroine: sharp-witted Rebecca West, a survivor if ever there were one. We see the action predominantly through her eyes, as well as her complex love-hate relationships with her mother, her friend Judith and even the Witchfinder General himself.

In an age that sought to silence women, I also found it interesting that some of the accused seem all too eager to condemn themselves out of their own mouths, fighting the annihilation of being held in total darkness for many months in Colchester goal.

I learn that AK Blakemore is a poet and her skill with language is evident, right from the description of Rebecca’s morning walk in the opening chapter to the sea in the closing pages.

I’m happy to say that I unreservedly give this novel five stars.

Haunting dark time in history.A time of executing witches a book that ties you back in time characters that come alive so involving so well written.#netgalley #granata

The Manningtree Witches is a richly-imagined, lyrical and beguiling debut historical novel that brilliantly brings to life the residents of a small English town in the grip of the seventeenth-century witch trials and the young woman tasked with saving them all from themselves. Set in 1643, a time when the English Civil War was raging, the county of Essex would become the location of the Manningtree witch trials which claimed between 200-400 lives, and despite being the smallest town in England it became the centre of fear, destruction and death. It lies on the southern bank of the River Stour, some ten miles northeast of Colchester and became infamous for its association with Matthew Hopkins, the evil 17th Century (self-proclaimed) Witchfinder General and the man who claimed to hold the Devil's own list of all the witches in England. The period of religious and political upheaval throughout the turbulent years of the English Civil War, coupled with the prevailing rabidly anti-Catholic feeling endemic throughout the puritan population of East Anglia, provided the back-drop to Hopkins' now infamous rise and it was widely thought that several witches in Manningtree regularly practised the dark arts. Although his puritan upbringing certainly gave him the motivation to battle the Devil and all his works, as an impoverished and rather unsuccessful lawyer, Matthew Hopkins was not slow to see the financial benefits such a career and a reign of terror might bring. 21-year-old Manningtree resident Rebecca West is unmarried and resides with her volatile and indomitable widowed mother, Anne Beldam West. They live in abject poverty but Rebecca works as often as she can while also taking care to study the Bible.

Hopkins’ campaign targeted single women as they were viewed with deep suspicion in a time when you were supposed to be under the control of a husband or father. The terror and fear unattached widowed and independent local women felt was palpable and impacted their lives greatly. The witch-hunting was to follow a depressingly familiar pattern of popular denunciation, examination, interrogation and ultimately, execution. The torturing of witches to obtain their confession involved sleep deprivation, the use of tight restraints to induce cramps and starvation diets. The sentence of death when it came was by hanging. Hopkins also favoured the infamous "swimming" test, binding the suspect's limbs together and lowering them into the village pond. The logic was murderously simply: God's pure water would reject a witch, causing her to float, while the innocence of those who sank and drowned would assure them of a place in heaven. This is at once a horrific and stunningly beautiful historical novel with a scintillating and enthralling plot and a thoroughly twisty narrative. The atmosphere Blakemore creates is chilling and oppressively claustrophobic and it's clear the book has been extensively researched. The characters are based on genuine people and the historical aspects are all authentic with the vivid descriptions transporting you with ease back in time to an impoverished, filthy town. Told in richly-detailed prose from Rebecca's perspective and with a sense of intense foreboding from the very beginning, this is a dark, disturbing read and tells the tale of terror, superstition, envy, religious zealotry, extreme misogyny and the suffering caused due to misplaced fear of the women. Highly recommended.

"The Manningtree Witches" is a beautifully written novel. I enjoyed the characters a lot, as they were developed well and felt very solid. The story is a very, very good one, and the author obviously put a lot of time and effort into research. I hope A. K. Blakemore writes many more novels - I will certainly be reading them!

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Witches and the history of social attitudes to evil fascinate me so I was immediately drawn to The Manningtree Witches, an exploration of the female stories behind the witches discovered, imprisoned and put to trial by the Witchfinder General during the English Civil War.

The book retells the story of these so-called witches through the historical character of Rebecca West, whose confession appears in modern English in the text. Nothing about this retelling disappoints. The suppressed desires of the puritans, the overarching power of the patriarchy, and the sense of poverty – both material and educational – make the complex unravelling of the possible workings of the devil salacious material pertinent to a modern world of fake news and self-appointed spokespeople.

The novel is gripping and provocative, throwing in visions and emotions that play with a more magical realist connection to religion and its spiritual embodiment in daily life, that feels true to the period and remains tethered to a modern sensibility despite greater emphasis on reason and science. We are still spooked by an albino hare standing in our path, its pale, red-rimmed eyes staring at us in the early dawn. Such encounters continue to raise the hair on our necks, making this modern retelling feel alarmingly contemporary. What is good? What is bad? Who controls the narrative of our experiences? Who stamps meaning on our actions and feelings? These remain critical questions as the avenues for gossip and spite grow.

A fun read with thought-provoking ideas beneath, this would be a perfect read for those who love a little gothic, religious horror that makes monsters of the witchfinders and the government men rather than the women whose poverty and single life make them dangerous outsiders in a society desperate to prove its propriety and deny its bestial roots. It’s out this March.

Thanks to Netgalley and Granta for this book. I originally requested this book because 1) it being set in Essex where I live and 2) witches!

I thought it was a well written book. The language really sets the scene - you can practically see & smell the settings and the characters due to the colourful descriptive language. I found myself throughout googling & learning things - not only new words, but also about Matthew Hopkins (Witchfinder General) and the witch trials more generally.

I really enjoyed the Afterword of the book where the author set out what factual material had been relied on and also where they drew parallels with witch hunting that still happens in this day and age. I will seek to educate myself further on this topic.

Thank you, NetGalley for this ARC!

I started this with high hopes and I was not let down. The Manningtree Witches was a terrible and beautiful take on the Essex witch trials (of which I was not aware) and focuses on the story of Rebecca West, a woman who confessed and was pardoned for the crime of being a witch.

It's told from Rebecca's point of view and what she knows of how things played out for herself and the others. The prose is beautiful, and I love the sense of detachment that comes from some sections of the book (you'll see what I mean) and how it conveys much more than it leaves out.

An interesting book. The book follows the rise of Matthew Hopkins as witchfinder general and in particular Rebecca West accused of witchcraft. I did find the book slow at the beginning using a quarter of the book to set the scene. Although beautifully written I did not connect with the book.
This is an honest review of a complementary ARC.