In Strasbourg, in the boiling hot summer of 1518, a plague strikes the women of the city. First it is just one - a lone figure, dancing in the town square - but she is joined by more and more and the city authorities declare an emergency. Musicians will be brought in. The devil will be danced out of these women. Just beyond the city''s limits, pregnant Lisbet lives with her mother-in-law and husband, tending the bees that are their livelihood. Her best friend Ida visits regularly and Lisbet is so looking forward to sharing life and motherhood with her. And then, just as the first woman begins to dance in the city, Lisbet''s sister-in-law Nethe returns from six years penance in the mountains for an unknown crime. No one - not even Ida - will tell Lisbet what Nethe did all those years ago, and Nethe herself will not speak a word about it. It is the beginning of a few weeks that will change everything for Lisbet - her understanding of what it is to love and be loved, and her determination to survive at all costs for the baby she is carrying. Lisbet and Nethe and Ida soon find themselves pushing at the boundaries of their existence - but they''re dancing to a dangerous tune . . . From Kiran Millwood Hargrave, the bestselling author of The Mercies , The Dance Tree is a heart-stopping story of family secrets, forbidden love and women pushed to the edge.
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The Sunday Times Bestseller and BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick 2020 For readers of Circe and The Handmaid''s Tale , Kiran Millwood Hargrave''s The Mercies is a story about how suspicion can twist its way through a community, and about a love that could prove as dangerous as it is powerful. Winter, 1617. The sea around the remote Norwegian island of Vardo is thrown into a reckless storm. A young woman, Maren, watches as the men of the island, out fishing, perish in an instant. Vardo is now a place of women. Eighteen months later, a sinister figure arrives. Summoned from Scotland to take control of a place at the edge of the civilized world, Absalom Cornet knows what he needs to do to bring the women of the island to heel. With him travels his young wife, Ursa. In her new home, and in Maren, Ursa finds something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place flooded with a terrible evil, one he must root out at all costs . . . ''Beautiful and chilling'' Madeline Miller, author of Circe ''Took my breath away'' Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring
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1617, Vardø, au nord du cercle polaire, en Norvège. Maren Magnus-datter, vingt ans, regarde la violente tempête qui s'abat sur la mer. Quarante pêcheurs, dont son frère et son père, gisent sur les rochers, noyés. Les hommes de Vardø ont été décimés, les femmes vont désormais assurer seules leur survie. Trois ans plus tard, Absalom Cornet débarque d'Écosse. Cet homme sinistre y brûlait des sorcières. Sa jeune épouse norvégienne, Ursa, terrifiée par l'autorité de son mari, se lie d'amitié avec Maren et découvre que les femmes peuvent être indépendantes. Absalom, lui, ne voit en Vardø qu'un endroit où Dieu n'a pas sa place, un endroit hanté par un puissant démon. Un roman captivant inspiré de faits réels.