The Manningtree Witches: A. K. Blakemore

Loved this book, I live just down the road from Manningtree and have family who still live there. I already knew the history and this is not the first book to feature this story there is a book by Barbara Erskine from a few years back. This book was so good I couldn’t put it down! It is absolutely haunting. The Thorn Inn is still there on the same site, the town is a beautiful old town with many historic buildings well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Set in medieval England, it gives an alternative perspective on the famous Witchfinder General of history, but it tells us a little from the side of the women he persecuted. I was eager to read this book because it is an element of history that I feel the need to learn more of. I was not disappointed. It was entertaining, the language was colourful, and it provoked emotional responses along the way.

It was OK, easy to read, but very predictable

Brilliantly written and riveting throughout. Blakemore's use of the written word is fantastic, I laughed out loud at the description of the rump of England,

Academics and historians provide to us the the quotidian fabric of the past. Their effort is a structure, a plan or blueprint which ensures the security of outline and chronology. This but a foundation; our true connection with the lived past as present is in the gift of the author who can open a portal into the interior lives and hearts of the personages whose lived experience becomes our own endeavour.The primary task of the novelist whose subject is the past is to dissolve the barriers between that domain and the present tense of their reader. A.K Blakemore is just that talent: Where academic authority charts the placement of brick upon brick, Blakemore adds the charms and familiars that enliven the interstices of the fabric with the spark of life. Her subjects are not the grandees around which lesser mortals fawn and genuflect, her subjects are the oppressed, the downtrodden and the persecuted. The true monster of the black hole at the dark heart of the novel, Matthew Hopkins, is a cruel practitioner of the dark arts of psychological warfare, a savage void at the core of an encirclement of terror. In scintillating passages of dialogue the author parlays techniques of psychological combat and manipulation that aim to strip those under examination of their stable foundation and core of moral authority and identity. Such are the same techniques as applied in the contemporary courts of theocrats, fascists, autocrats and demagogues. The women accused and brought under suspicion are subject to treatment and some practices no less unfamiliar to us in our own time.The illuminating prose of A.K. Blakemore provides us with a passport and mode of entry into the past. Her lucid and powerful endeavour disperses some of the shadows therein, but not all: The shadows that remain are those of our own age.

I love this novel - it will make my favourites shelf. I am sure that it lies atop the blood, sweat and tears of research, reading, information gathering, note making, databases and cross referencing.The brilliance and beauty of this work is that you don’t notice the effort and skill of the preparation. She captures characters so well, crafts the towns and people and interactions and conversations of life quite uniquely. Her prose perfect. And l, importantly, she explores what it is is to be powerless in the hands of a sociopathic man in a dysfunctional society with great insight and complete precision.Fabulous - will recommend to all.

Novel based on the events instigated by Matthew Hopkins, self styled witchfinder general, in the 1640's. Cracking good read. Thanks 😀

Of course, there’s no such thing as witches. And that’s what makes this story so compelling. No leg-of-toad, eye-of-newt mumbo jumbo here. It’s all about power, control, fear, cruelty and superstition. It also made me want to visit Manningtree, a place I had only ever previously associated with the mighty Dinghus Khan.

Like Hilary Mantel, this author deftly captures the mood and life in 1643 England during the First English Civil War. Her narrator soon has us as breathless as to next events and on tenterhooks for the well developed characters as if we were sisters or best friends. This is a book that brings history alive with characters that imprint themselves on your psyche through their tale well told.

Lovers of history or people (like me) who know nothing of it will both adore this book. Having finished it I feel moved and I wish there was more. Rebecca West is re-imagined as a strong young woman I think most of us can relate to. Just read it. I promise you won't regret it.

As has caught me before, I’d completed my review on the Kindle pop-up, then went to post it, and it popped down, never to be seen again. WITCH!The time it took me to read this book is no reflection on how much I liked it, it’s just that other books got in the way.The mid 1640s were a dangerous time to be a woman - especially a widowed or otherwise husbandless one, an elderly one, or one with a knowledge of healing. The menfolk are mostly away at war, and the Puritanical purge of imposing Godliness on everyone is under full swing. However, the (to our enlightened age) uneducated population have nothing to blame the misfortunes on, until suspicion falls upon the aforementioned women. Crops failed? Witch! Neighbour miscarried? Witch! Stock died? Witch!In retrospect, it’d have been pretty easy to cop an accusation, and the book highlights the cases of those who accused, a type of kill-or-be-killed of the time.Rebecca West, along with her mother, and other women of the village, are accused of witchcraft, and are sent to stand trial. Noted famous or infamous, depending upon which side of the dock you’re standing, witchfinder, Matthew Hopkins takes charge of the cases, and the reader is along for the ride. This book finds the balance between historical facts and situations, and a fictional story of a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time.Also recommended for a lighter view on the same issue: the BBC sitcom The Witchfinder. Not terribly historically accurate, but a good diversion.

It’s an addictive and often disturbing fictional account of the Essex witch trials of the 1640s and includes plenty of real life characters and events.This book highlights the treatment of women, especially those seen as being on the outer edges of society, whether due to poverty, marriage status or just having wronged someone of importance. The witch hunts gave people a reason to accuse their neighbours and foes of being witches or aiding the Devil, leading to their incarceration and in most cases their eventual execution.Told from the POV of Rebecca West, a young woman who lives with her mother on the outskirts of town in what is basically a hovel. They are viewed with suspicion and mistrust by the religious mainstream.There were parts of this book which made me feel such anger as you could clearly see how things were going to go. Neighbours betraying neighbours, husbands accusing wives and childhood friends turning against one another.It took me a few chapters to get into the style of the writing as it is written using old fashioned language. I did look up a few words as I went as they were so intriguing.Another brilliant read that may not be for everyone, but if you don’t mind older style language in your historical fiction then this one is for you.

This writer is brilliant in the poetic way she sketches the town, the people and their inner hearts. I do suggest you read this novel. Good enough to get me to actually write a review.