Note: I received a free copy of this e-book through Booktasters in return for an honest review.

Witch-hunting was one of the many evils of our past society. Unfortunately, many regions and communities across various parts of the world still practice punishing those they think are witches. The Author captured one such instance from the history of three women in 16th-century England. Did the author succeed in conveying the intended emotions in the book? Let’s delve deeper.

Author: Millie Thom Language: English No. of Pages: 465 Format: eBook Genre: Historical Fiction

John Flower and Joan Flower and their two daughters live happily in Bottesford, a village in Leicestershire. While John is often away due to his work and visits them every week or fortnight. On the other hand, Joan is a very proud woman, making her unpopular among the villagers. One fine day, when John Flower was going back to work after his weekend, he met with an accident and died. This puts the whole Flower family into Poverty. They are occasionally hired at the Belvoir Castle as temporary employers; however, a series of misdeeds put them out of employment at the Castle. Joan Flower considers the dismissal of her elder daughter unfair and takes unusual revenge. On the other hand, they also do prostitution, which earns them the wrath of the womenfolk of the village. All these culminate and make the three witches. The whole book is about these incidents, witchhunting by the men of power, and the tortures they go into to prove their innocence/guilt.

I would call this book An excruciatingly painful read because of the slow narration and almost no pace after a point. The author goes on to give us a back story of the Flower family, and when they are witch-hunted and brought into questioning, not only do the flower girls go through the torture, but as readers, we also go through it because of the pacing and repetition of incidents. We ask readers to know the backstory already, and instead of passing through that, the Author decided to tell us the smallest of details, which wasn’t necessary at all.

Instead, the author could have started directly by questioning the flower women, and through their accounts, we are told the back story; this way, we needn’t read the same thing over and over again. While the intent of the Author was good, we readers don’t deserve to be put through this. I almost skipped multiple pages of the questioning sessions, which didn’t interest me because it was evident they were going to judge these women guilty.

One more issue with the book was the third person narrative the book took, and I really didn’t understand what the author wanted us readers to feel because the book took an almost neutral stand, and we readers were just witnesses of what was happening, which didn’t sit well with me. This narration style might have been the biggest reason the book didn’t work for me.

Overall, this book didn’t work for me at all, and I didn’t have one good thing to write about it.

Until next time, Ciao 😇