The Witching Tide: The powerful and gripping debut novel for readers of Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel

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When a witch-finder comes to their village, Martha is forced to take on a role that will betray other women she cares about. It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society. But the doll’s true powers are unknowable, Martha harbors a terrible secret that could cost her own freedom, and the gallows are looming. One thing that makes this novel stand out from the rest is the mute main character who is also a skilled midwife. A woman accused of witchcraft sums up the situation in Meyer’s fraught tale of misogyny, prejudice, and mob rule in 1640s England.

The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer - Aotearoa New Zealand The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer - Aotearoa New Zealand

Meyer evokes the uncanniness, the appalling cruelties of the witch trials in a way that is also thoroughly humane. Martha, and elderly servant and midwife, finds herself caught in the middle of the examiners, attempting to both help her friends while also hiding her own secrets from the accusers. It would be difficult to read The Witching Tide and not be emotionally affected by the monstrous injustices perpetrated on Martha and the other accused women.She turned it upside down and repeated the process, holding the doll’s head to the heat until the wax was doughy.

The Witching Tide Margaret Meyer on her debut novel, The Witching Tide

In her plight, Martha, who doesn’t speak, grasps at a wax witching doll, a poppet, which she inherited from her mother, hoping it will give her protection. And then, you'll rush your way to the end to see what happens (all the while praying for a happy ending you have about 2% faith will happen). The plot struck such a visceral chord in me and felt so real, I had to wonder if somehow the author (or I) had been there in a past life. She relit the trivet candle and held the doll’s nether end over the heat until the wax softened again. The synopsis goes on: “But suddenly, amid the escalating tensions of the English Civil War, she becomes a silent witness to a witch hunt, led by sinister new arrival Silas Makepeace.I’d go so far as to say that the subject – a fictional account of the very real witch hunt that occurred in East Anglia in the late 1640s, in which “more than 100 innocent women lost their lives” – must’ve been an obsession for Meyer, so painstakingly detailed are her descriptions of the life, times and irrational tortures of the period. And it really reminds me of the early suburbs of Auckland where all the houses are together, and you can see into your neighbour’s yard and everybody checks over the fence and that kind of thing. She turned her head and saw Simon coming from his bed under the stairs with his hands raised: part greeting, mostly alarm.

The Witching Tide | Book by Margaret Meyer | Official The Witching Tide | Book by Margaret Meyer | Official

The Witching Tide casts a spell that carries readers back to 17th century days of actual witch hunts, when fearmongers spread rumour and false accusations to wield power over women.Our former prime minister Jacinda Ardern was demonised by conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxers and misogynists.