‘Half-Hanged Maggie’ holds the promise of a tale that must be told – and it is related so well by Kate Foster. Based on a true story from the 1720s, when it was illegal to hide a pregnancy, the author captures the atmosphere and challenges of life in rural Scotland. The deft descriptions and historical facts embrace compelling and marvellous characters and events. Foster’s empathetic handling of the survival skills needed by women is a salutary tapestry to progress, hard-earned and hard-won by being strong, loyal and determined.

Another banger of a hit from Kate Foster. Was hooked on every page, tough to read at times, but atmospheric and gripping.

This is the third Kate Foster historical novel of which I have now read two. Her last book “The King’s Witches” (2024) impressed with its late 16th Century setting, its sense of paranoia over witchcraft, its three first-person narratives, including the real-life Princess Anna of Denmark, betrothed to James VI of Scotland, and its sheer readability.
Her latest novel feels less ambitious in scope featuring one character’s first-person account set in Scotland, mainly in the 1720s. This is the tale of Maggie Dickson, who I didn’t know until the Historical Note at the end was a real person, still well known in the Edinburgh area who fell foul of a law which existed then both in Scotland and England which prohibited the concealment of a pregnancy.
We begin this novel at what seems like the end on the occasion of her hanging but miraculously she comes to in her coffin, having already been declared dead, and makes her entrance at the own wake. Celebrated as “Half-Hanged Maggie” this is the story of events leading up to and after the grisly event.
The facts are real but the author develops a highly readable fiction around these, creating a family and new characters who lead to her downfall or help and support her with coming to terms with living with the reputation of having cheated death whilst still bearing the branding of the rope burns around her neck.
Around this are issues regarding what it was to be a working-class woman at this time, her rights, what was expected of her and the options open to her. Maggie, from the fishing village of Fisherrow, Musselburgh from generations of those who catch, gut and sell fish yearns for a different existence in London and when a man arrives in the village who seems to offer such possibilities she is soon taken in.
Like all the best historical fiction the past of Maggie’s life resonates with our own centuries later. The law she was convicted by may be long gone but some of the issues she faces still ring very true.
So, although the focus is very much narrowed down from her previous novel of royalty and witchcraft I found this equally enjoyable with Kate Foster proving to be a thought-provoking story-teller who can convincingly flesh out real characters and incidents from the past.

The Mourning Necklace is published by Mantle, an imprint of Pan Macmillan on 29th May 2025. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

The book is based on the real story of Half Hanged Maggie that became folklore in Scotland. The emphasis of it is life of women in the eighteenth century. None of women in the book had easy life because of poverty but all of them were able slowly to transform themselves to the better version of themselves, stronger and able to survive and support others living in the world where women had not many rights.

Our journey with Maggie Dickson starts in 1724. Not an easy time to be a woman, especially for those who aren’t blessed to be born to wealth. Maggie falls fowl to a ludicrous law of the time. A law which controls women and their bodies, and results in the loss of further life. Maggie miraculously survives her sentence.

The story takes a meandering journey through a tumultuous time in Maggie’s life. It is quite the rollercoaster for her, and the reader too.
The characterisation is deep and rich, they were all very much alive to me. Fisherrow and the back streets of Edinburgh provide an immersive backdrop, showing the murkiness of the time in all of its grubby glory.

When the name of the book is mentioned within the story, it’s meaning is very poignant and moving.

The epilogue is short, but sweet, and incredibly touching. It brought a tear to my eye. It was while reading the author’s historical note, that I discovered Maggie is a historical figure, not a fictional one. This made me feel more emotional, now knowing a little of all that she, and others, endured.

Kate Foster tells the most beautiful stories, through wonderful writing, with a distinct feminist voice. Easily 5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really like how Kate Foster takes real women who are often overlooked by history and gives them their own story.

The Mourning Necklace follows Maggie who survives being hanged (I can’t believe that actually happened!)

This book was well written and incredibly depressing (as you’d imagine from this sort of subject matter).

I did enjoy Foster’s The Maiden more (I thought it was excellent) however this is still a great historical fiction book giving a story to a woman may have otherwise been forgotten.

I was so moved, both by Maggie's storyline and all she goes through but also by learning this is based on a real life event. The laws made surrounding women and pregnancy in the past seem scarily close to becoming a reality again with people choosing theology and morality arguments over science and autonomy.
The way the storyline is crafted is so beguiling and you feel instantly in the thick of the action and the horror that Maggie is living. When you see her story is not quite as it seems, how many times she is betrayed and put in harm's way through no fault of her own, it is haunting. The depth of the characters is charming and the writing just beautiful. The Mourning Necklace is a stunning book, ripe for a TV or film adaptation.

This novel is based on the true story of Scottish Maggie Dickson, a woman hanged in Edinburgh in 1794 for concealment of pregnancy. However, she survived the hanging and Morton begins her tale at this point, going back to the events leading to the hanging. Maggie is a strong young woman who works as a a gutter of fish and who dreams of going to London to better her life but is faced with adversity in a society dominated by men and their laws which do not favour women. She suffers betrayal by both those close to her and acquaintances, being dealt several blows but is determined to overcome the obstacles and harshness of life that get in her way. She is portrayed as a feminist of her time.
This is a compelling and emotional novel thanks to Morton’s excellent story telling skills. Highly recommended.
Thank you to the publishers for the ARC.

Absolutely superb. Kate Foster cannot put a foot wrong in this genre. She finds the most fascinating stories and knows instinctively how to bring them to life through her characters. I finished this a few days ago and I'm still thinking about it. Wonderful.

I really liked this book! At its core, it's the story of how we treat and value women in history.
Maggie is a fisher girl who marries and eventually becomes pregnant. Circumstances then conspire against her and she is hanged for the death of her baby. However, she then wakes up after her hanging. Alive and well!!
I felt really cross at how she was treated by those around her and the injustice of what she experienced!
Knowing that the story is (to some extent) based on a true story is even more horrifying.
Bit like Hallie Rubenhold, or Camilla Bruce (less gore).

I read this through netgalley for an honest review but requested it through them on the off chance because I was already planning on ordering it when it came out (I read and liked the maiden previously).

A wonderful book, indeed as we would say North of the Border, an absolute stoater! The fact it's based in real life just adds to it. I was captivated from start to finish and positively sailed through it.

Thank you to Kate Foster, Pan Macmillan | Mantle, and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Written in the first-person past tense, The Mourning Necklace is a fictionalised account of Half-Hanged Maggie, a Scottish woman who was found guilty of infanticide and hanged but survived.

Foster’s writing flowed beautifully and the pacing was well executed. Characterisation was flawless and the setting was immersive. An engaging read and one I would recommend.

Kate Foster is wonderful at creating a sense of time and place and The Mourning Necklace doesn’t disappoint, grabbing you from the first page as the novel opens with a woman being hanged in Edinburgh. Maggie Dickson has been sentenced to death and is recorded as such, returning to her home in Musselburgh in a coffin. Somehow, though, she has survived and wakes there to the shock of her family. From there we go back to discover what led her to the gallows and forwards to find out what she does throughout the rest of her life.

The book is based on a true story from the 1700s about Half-Hangit Maggie and it’s beautifully told. Maggie is an excellent character, of her time and upbringing but strong and ambitious. Her life in the fishing village, the hard work the women especially do there, how restrictive life is when you never leave the place you are born and everyone knows you, how impossible it is to learn much about new places or new people, all are very powerfully portrayed. It’s clearly very well researched but the research is worn lightly and creates a world you can almost see, hear and smell, full of believable people.

I’ve enjoyed all of Kate Foster’s books and this is another great read. Her sense of period and descriptions of Scotland and her women in history are superb. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

18th C east coast of Scotland - a dour fishing village where one is born into fishing and will die in fishing. The Dickson family is one of those families and this is the story of Maggie Dickson, the eldest daughter.
Maggie Dickson is hanged in Edinburgh for allegedly having killed her baby. She survives her hanging.
“Human life is cheap. They die on street corners, in rags, an empty bottle rolling around beside them. They die of poxes and plagues and starvation and hangings. They die in childbirth. Or shortly thereafter. Whispers of the afterlife are sometimes the only hope we have.”
Told by Maggie this is a story based on a real character and dealing with subjects like poverty, despair and dishonesty but also resilience and love. Maggie’s is a great voice that needs to be heard.
A great accomplishment!

I eagerly encourage you to read Kate Foster’s books, a fantastic author. But be prepared to be so enraged at the horrific treatment of the characters! I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author, the publisher and Net Galley.

Kate Foster writes historical novels and this is the third I’ve read. They all are set in Scotland and they all draw inspiration from real characters and events. The Mourning Necklace draws on the story of a woman whose execution by hanging didn’t succeed, leaving her bruised and damaged, but a loved. We learn of the events that led up to her execution and what she must do to survive afterwards.

This is an incredibly compelling novel where I was rooting so badly for the character to experience some care and comfort in her life. She is treated horribly. Not just by the people that lead to her execution, but by her own family. Her parents are awful to her, but her sister’s callousness is really shocking.

There’s a passivity and acceptance to the this author’s protagonists that’s hard to read from a modern lens. However it seeks to highlight the lack of options available to women historically. Their choices so heavily hemmed in by societal expectations and prejudices of the time.

I think this might be Foster’s best book yet and that’s a strong statement given how much I enjoyed her previous two books.

Kate Foster has once again crafted a wonderful retelling of a true story! She possesses a remarkable talent for reviving the stories of potentially overlooked historical figures. This time, we are introduced to Maggie Dickson.

"I was hanged at nine. I have been dead for four hours. I have been dead long enough."

Maggie Dickson, who lived from approximately 1702 to 1765, was a fishwife who gained notoriety after being convicted of infanticide. She survived her execution in 1724 and became known as Half-Hangit Maggie.

Life was difficult for the fisherwomen from Fisherrow, and Maggie, along with her mother and sister Joan, were subject to their father's unpredictable temperament. Maggie yearned for a better life, and she believed that Patrick Spencer offered her that opportunity. They married after a courtship of only three months, and Maggie found happiness and contentment. Unfortunately, Patrick ultimately proved to be her undoing.

This remarkable novel portrays the hardships faced by women of that era while also highlighting Maggie's strength and perseverance in the face of adversity.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

The Mourning Necklace is the latest novel from Women's Prize nominated author Kate Foster, who previously wrote The Maiden which was my favorite novel from that year’s nominees. Like The Maiden, this new work is inspired by a historical figure: a strong woman who endures extraordinary hardship.

We follow Maggie Dickson, a 22-year-old woman accused of concealing a pregnancy and sentenced to death by hanging. In a strange twist of fate, Maggie survives the execution. The novel explores how Maggie chooses to live her second chance at life, as well as the events leading up to her conviction.

This was an incredibly compelling read. Maggie is a resilient and independent character, and I loved seeing how she navigated the many challenges thrown her way. Foster’s writing is stellar and concise, the novel’s length feels just right. While I still prefer The Maiden over The Mourning Necklace, I would eagerly read anything Kate Foster writes.

18th century, Edinburgh. Maggie Dickson is found guilty of infanticide and is sentenced to hang by the neck. But a few hours after her hanging, she awakens in her coffin and frightens her family when they are mourning in a pub just outside Edinburgh. Will they hang her twice? Good and kind Maggie was always destined to become a fisherman's wife, but this changed when she met Patrick Spencer and he made her dream of something more.

Maggie Dickson was a Scottish woman sentenced to hang for infanticide. A Scottish law in the 18th century that said that if a women concealed her pregnancy or became a mother outside wedlock and the baby died, she is guilty of murder. But Maggie survived her own death sentence and lived on for 40 more than years. Kate Foster takes her story and explores who Maggie was before, during and after her trial.

We get to know Maggie as a naive girl full of dreams, stuck in a fishing village, who falls in love with the mysterious Spencer. But once married, Spencer suddenly disappears and Maggie goes off to find her own happiness.

The mourning necklace doesn't have a complex plot. We get to know Maggie, her sister Joan and her parents who try to make ends meet with a bit of tea smuggling on the side. But Maggie has always yearned for more. Ultimately, this is a of coming of age story of a woman who has to learn that men cannot be trusted and that sometimes good is good enough.

Kate Foster writes very well, but I was missing something here. I liked her previous book “The king's witches” better I think. Not that this one was bad. It just didn't grab me as much. However, I did like how 18th century Edinburgh came to live in the second half of the book.

It's fascinating to know that Maggie Dickson did exist and that she escaped the noose. How she did that, we'll never know, but Foster brings her story to the foreground.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in return for my honest opinion.

The Mourning Necklace is another enjoyable historical novel from Foster, whose work uncovers stories of Scottish women little remembered by history.

The prose is compelling, but the pacing is off and I found the narrative really runs away from itself at the end. What were originally quite believeable characters suddenly undergo huge changes for what feels like the sake of a tidy ending.

It's a compulsive read, with an arresting premise, but I wish the ending didn't feel quite so forced.

Having been to Edinburgh , seen the pub commemorating this story and hearing the gruesome true tale of this woman's life made this story really come to life. The tale is fleshed out with fiction to great success. Full of important themes.