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The Dance Tree: A BBC Between the Covers book club pick

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Not what I quite was expecting; which was a book dealing with the dancing plague (actually happened - Strasbourg, 1518, still undecided as to the cause, ranging from mania to ergot poisoning). Our features are original articles from our print magazines (these will say where they were originally published) or original articles commissioned for this site. I would like to thank the publisher for giving me access to the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. There are many different theories to this day as to what started the dancing plaque in 1518 in Strasbourg ranging from tainted rye in the bread to curses to hot blood. In the book, it is very quickly obvious what that “sin” or “crime” is and it was a source of some frustration for me as I read that it was not revealed in the book until the halfway point.

Her debut YA novel The Deathless Girls was published in 2019, and was shortlisted for the YA Book Prize, and long listed for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. The 16th century was a time of severe weather, stubborn and severe summer heat, no rain and ruined crops. To the east, the comet found a farmer’s field and scorched it fully, furrowed so deep those who were there said it was like a tunnel to Hell carved in the soil. She dances for days without pause or rest, and when hundreds of other women join her, the men running the city declare a state of emergency and hire musicians to play the Devil out of the mob. The Dance Tree made me feel connected to all of the women who have ever lived and to the ways in which oppression, love, and sisterhood link us across generations.While this city-wide drama unfolds, so too does the drama of Lizbet's life, as she is forced to question everything she has ever thought about sin and love. So, they danced, one woman started, couldnt and wouldnt stop and by the time this mania ended, over 400 women would be dancing. I was first intrigued by this book because I've always been slightly fascinated by The Dance Plague of 1518 - is that slightly morbid?

The world-at-large remains too often a hostile place for people who live, look, or love a different way. These women, Lisbet, Ida and Agnethe - marginalized, with no power or freedom, embody the strength and courage that women today will need as men try to control their health, their bodies, their choices. But Ida has a secret that even best friend Lisbet does not know - and, when revealed, puts Lisbet's family in jeopardy. Then an evil wizard came along and, envious of the joy I got from these books, cast a spell upon me.

Hargrave notes that incidents of choreomania were – if not common – recurrent in Medieval times, rationalised as religious mania, and what seems to me to be the nub of this novel is the fact that ‘[o]ften, the dancers were society’s most vulnerable, whether through class, age, race, or gender.

Overall there is much to recommend The Dance Tree to fans of historical fiction who long for immersion in another world but prefer escapism that provokes further thought about the time and place that we do live in. The dance tree, where she commemorates her lost children, is her refuge away from the chaos enveloping the city. Nor is there any superfluous scene in ‘The Dancing Tree’; midway, I feared there just wasn’t going to be enough of this gorgeous book to enjoy. This is part of a continued theme throughout the book of focusing on the lives and personhood of the women of this story, and rooting the answer to why the plague happened in their lives and experiences and psyches.Crime was everywhere and there were many pagan rituals driving people from their homes into the forest. She danced for days, any attempts to make her rest thwarted, until it drew the attention of the Twenty-One, the city’s council, and she was taken to the shrine of St Vitus, patron saint of dancers and musicians. Their intention is to oppress women and nature, and steal anything that makes money in a time of hunger and starvation. I somewhat enjoyed ‘The Mercies’ (2020), but found I was unsettled with the ending of that, the author’s first novel for adults, and could never really root for the characters. She has a tree in the woods, (a dance tree) where she has installed a private sanctuary, where she has ribbons to honor the past babies lost.

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