The Mercies is a fascinating historical adult debut by the brilliant Kiran Millwood Hargrave. The first book I read by this author was the YA novel, The Deathless Girls, which I loved and I then went on to read her MG book, The Way Past Winter. I was excited to read another highly anticipated novel but also wary of the fact that this was going to be aimed at adults and possibly might not be something that interested me. I'm so glad I didn't let that stop me as I adored this novel.

The first few chapters were overflowing with interesting information about Maren and her community in Vardo. Disaster strikes immediately when forty men are killed out at sea, many of them husbands and sons of the women of Vardo. Suddenly the women must look to themselves to provide food and the means to live.

After learning about Maren and the tragedy that has befallen her people we head south to Bergen to meet Ursa who is about to marry the commissioner, Absalom Cornet, a Godly man who has condemned and burnt witches in his home country and plans to do the same in Vardo.

Maren and Ursa's lives collide as they both try to survive the accusations and trials of condemned women. It was fascinating to read of these horrific witch trials that I had no knowledge of at all. Brutal witch trials are usually connected with America and specifically Salem so this hidden history was eye opening.

The slow burning romance between Maren and Ursa was so satisfying to read, their love was kindled in the comforting arms of each other when all the other women were turning on one another.

One of the most important details of The Mercies is being able to spot the modern day similarities. When was the last time you read an article by a woman condemning another woman? When was the last time you saw a woman insult another woman? You might think the women of Vardo are cruel and heartless but women turning on other women is still happening now.

I fully recommend this novel, in particular if you have an interest in historical fiction. It is brilliantly written and utterly heartbreaking.

I really enjoyed this book. What a courageous and resourceful group of ladies they were living in such harsh conditions. Based on a true story about a group of women widowed after their husbands were lost t sea after story I found the story captivating and unsettling. Brilliant writing from Kiran Millwood Hargrave.

My thanks to Pan Macmillan Picador for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Mercies’ by Kiran Millwood Hargrave in exchange for an honest review. It was published on 6 February.

As it was available as an audiobook when I began reading, I obtained this edition, narrated by Jessie Buckley, and combined listening with reading the eARC.

On Christmas Eve, 1617, a sudden and severe storm hits the sea around the remote Norwegian island of Vardø. In total forty fishermen, including the father and brother of Maren Magnusdatter, are lost to the waves. In a single night the menfolk of Vardø are wiped out leaving Vardø a place of women.

Time passes and the women adjust to their new situation stepping into the roles usually filled by men. Then a sinister newcomer arrives summoned from Scotland. Commissioner Absalom Cornet has been appointed by King Christian IV to “solidify the Church’s position” in the area. He considers the people of Vardø, with their traditional beliefs and practices, a hotbed of witchcraft.

Accompanying him is his young wife, Ursa. In the community of Vardø, and in Maren especially, Ursa discovers something that she has never seen before: independent women. Yet Absalom only sees evil and the Devil’s work that he must root out no matter the cost.

‘The Mercies’ is a powerful work of historical fiction; inspired by true events. The storm of 1617 did take forty of the menfolk of Vardø and in 1621 witch trials were held in Vardø.

I found it a haunting novel that evoked perfectly the isolation of the remote fishing village. I felt that I came to know its inhabitants well and care about their fates. The narrative builds slowly to its tragic conclusion.

Given the lyrical nature of the prose it came as no surprise that the author is an award winning poet. I was aware of her novels for younger readers and had bought two titles, though have yet to read them. This is her first novel for adults.

Given the combination of beautiful writing and a fascinating subject that offers plenty of scope for discussion, I expect that this will prove popular with reading groups. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see it nominated for this year’s literary prizes.

On a side note, its cover art is outstanding.

Certainly highly recommended.

A fascinating story of the bond between women against the back drop of accusations of witchcraft, jealousy, hysteria, religious fervour and the most harsh conditions of northern most Norway. Not quite 'The Crucible' with snow but it helps you get the idea. A perfect recommendation for anyone who enjoyed The Familiars by Stacey Halls.

"The Mercies" is based on historical events and begins by showing the resilience of women in the face of tragedy. Through Kiran Millwood Hargrave's beautiful prose, we learn of a community united then torn apart. Although a work of fiction, the book explores the impact of religious fanaticism, superstition, envy and spite in 17th Century Norway. I loved the premise, characters and setting. A very good read indeed.

Based on a true story about the storm of 1617 in Vardo, Norway. A small town loses all the men that are able to work. The women must some how find a way to survive. But its frowned upon for women to be doing 'mens jobs'like fishing. Then the local commissioner comes to town, to find witches.
A powerful story of survival and sisterhood. But also of betrayal and love. It is a truly heartbreaking story.

https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2020/2/11/the-mercies-by-kiran-millwood-hargrave

Disaster can bring out the best in us and the worst. We can see humanity come together in adversity we can see it become divisive as we seek who is to blame or just to blame those we have never liked anyway. The impact of which can stretch on for years into the present. Kiran Millwood Hargrave takes the double tragedy of a storm in Vardo and then exposes the even darker horrors that then arose which exposes racism and sexism with even deadlier consequences.

The novel has two key characters Maren the native of Vardo is horrified to see her father and brother wiped out in a ferocious sudden forty-minute storm. A storm that wiped out all but a handful of the village’s menfolk. The island is remote, and the remaining women cannot rely on charity from afar, so the women make do – farm, fish and trade themselves and slowly life continues but very different. But Vardo’s ruler is aware of this weird survival and it’s rulers are suspicious that supernatural forces may be in play. To it is sent Absalom Cornet a man from Scotland with a reputation for finding witches and with his new wealthy Norwegian wife he intends to find the truth. Ursa has had a remote upbringing she has never even had to make food before and slowly her and Maren bond and in spending so much time together grow closer. But Ursa is also picking up that Vardo has simmering tensions between the women of the town. Old rivalries and prejudices are about to explode; and Absalom is more than ready to seize the moment.

I really think Hargave has done a great service in exposing yet another of history’s darker secrets. The chaos and tragedy that strikes the women of Vardo is not well known and it shows prejudice against women for daring to take men’s places (even when there was no other choice) also the appalling treatment of the Lapp community who in Norway were viewed with a combination of suspicion and fear. The best bits of the novel for me was the initial set-up watching the storm and it’s direct aftermath and then the finale as the tension finally breaks and a very different type of storm arrives to destroy the place in a very different way. Hargrave captures the immediate horror and grief of the time well in both it’s terrifying beliefs plus the way those suspected would be then be treated.

I do enjoy the balance of perspectives between Maren who finds herself weirdly liberated but also aware how slight this sense of freedom is. In parallel Ursa the outsider finds herself strangely tempted helped by Absalom being an uncaring and often scarily unaware of his more violent moments; a husband that wants obedience rather than love. Again, the start of the novel really draws out these two women’s very different lives and backgrounds and leads the reader to decide who really is the least free here – the wealthy or the penniless?

But I felt the novel struggled to add more to the story. Its not hard to imagine the disaster that Vardo is about to experience and while this story isn’t well known we have seen many versions from this over the years. You can sense the other shoe that will drop very early on and there is little to surprise you in how the story will develop. The middle section of the tale feels very slow taking us the bitter finale and here I think focusing mainly on two characters has denied us really exploring the rest of the village. In particular the points of view of Kirsten a strong independent women daring to push social conventions with outrageous ideas such as wearing trousers and the more mysterious Diinna (a Lapp woman who married a Norwegian man) – their worldviews would have been great to explore and instead it’s viewed from the outside. Even Maren and Ursa’s relationship feels explored too briefly when they finally accept their feelings for one another. It feels a novel that could have pushed its boundaries a little more to really make the rest of Vardo come alive.

The Mercies is a very well written tale and as with Hargrave’s earlier YA novel The Deathless Girls there are some beautifully written atmospheric scenes exploring the world and character relationships but I needed a little more to chew on and felt some opportunities to really explore the issue were missed. I think those who appreciate a good histrocial fiction tale will enjoy this and we should all still honour the victims of Vardo – sadly we all know history can often repeat itself far too often.

Selected by our online book group for this period we love Kiran and love this book. The writing is beautiful and lyrical the island is fully realised and the characters crackle with life off the pages!

I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Mercies’ by Kieran Millwood Hargrave. The novel was so evocative if the desolate area that is northern Norway. You can feel the cold and bleak landscape so vividly. The story is based on truth shines a light on the trials of women.

A beautiful cover for a hauntingly written book. It's hard to fathom that this is based on truth, so shocking is the actions of a man determined to yield power and rip it away from an entire community of women at any cost.

Dark times abound, this is most definitely a book that will keep you up all night and haunt your sleep for days. I have already read it twice! There is poetry to the prose in this novel, absolutely spellbinding.

More please!

Forty fishermen die in a storm and the women are left to cope on their own. Then, a Scotsman with his Norwegian wife is sent to the island.
She has no idea how to manage in such a remote place but one of the inhabitants agrees to help her.
I could really relate to the characters in the book and as the accusations of witchcraft abound feared for the lives of the women in the village.
Thus was one of the most engrossing books I've read in a long time.

This is going to be on my Top 10 book recommendations for 2020.

Beautifully and evocatively written, the reader is transported to Vardø in 1617 in a period where suspicions and superstitions run rife.

I was very much reminded of another book I read last year: The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea - which was also set in the 1600s witch-hunting era, though in Iceland. Both are stories about women: the way we support one another and as a group, know the exact ways to tear one another apart. Both are historical fiction, based on real events. They have strong female protagonists and share an impending sense of dread.

I have recommended Lea’s book to others and would strongly recommend this to readers.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publishers for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This fictionalised account of the Vardo witchtrials focusses on the relationship between Maren, a native of the island and Ursa, a wealthier woman from Bergen who is brought to Vardo by her husband, a leading figure in the trials.

The novel is reminiscent of - of course - Arthur Miller's The Crucible - and also of Beth Underdown's novel The Witchfinder's Sister. All three share chilling depictions of the certainty of faith, particularly male faith, through which fear and hatred of women is justified and so much atrocity is committed.

The relationship between the women is believable and moving and the ending, though possibly far fetched, is upbeat.

Millwood Hargrave is supremely skilled at depicting the feel of a time and place which is so remote from that of the modern reader. You can feel the dirt and the wind, smell the fish and the salt and, gradually sense the impending doom as the net closes in around the Vardo women. I was captivated by this novel.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Pan Macmillan, and to NetGalley for allowing me the chance to read this book and give an honest review!

I loved the sound of this novel when I requested it. It had all the elements that I love in a book - based on a real historical event that has largely been forgotten in history, slightly fantastical, and set on the cold shores in Scandinavia.

So obviously I desperately wanted to love it. I genuinely believed I would adore this book. However, it just didn’t work for me. The descriptions are fantastic, and you’re taken right into the setting. I could almost feel that icy sea spray on my face. The writing is beautiful but... this is what didn’t work for me. I felt the writing was almost too beautiful, too whimsical, just too much. I didn’t care for any of the characters, and though the author doesn’t shy away from the gory details of the events that occur, I felt they were over-described.

I don’t know. I just didn’t couldn’t get into it. I was expecting it to sweep me away with those rough seas, but it just fell flat.

I feel there are a lot of people who will adore this, but I’m not the right reader for it. Still, for the beautiful depictions of the setting, and the depths to which the book has been researched, I think it’s worth a try.

It is 1617. In a remote village in the north of Norway a horrendous storm sweeps in suddenly when the menfolk are fishing. The village is left with an almost female population who somehow have to survive. Maren lost her father, her brother & her betrothed. Her mother is almost destroyed by grief. Her sister in law, who is of the Sami people has never really fitted well within the village & spends her time with her infants son. In order to survive the women work together to keep them alive, led by Kirsten. She even persuades a group to go out fishing- something that scandalised the very 'churchy' group. Eighteen months after the loss Absalom Cornet comes to the village. He has been sent to make sure that the population are good Christian souls without the taint of witchcraft, having made his name as a Witch-finder. He brings with him his new bride Ursa. Maren & Ursa form a close friendship. They are powerless to stop the tide of suspicion that sweeps through the village or to avoid the inevitable.

This was a beautifully written story. The author captures the setting & the atmosphere brilliantly. I became really involved with Ursa & Maren & I hated to leave them at the end. From the gorgeous cover to the amazing story telling this is a book I won't forget. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

I am always drawn to books set in a time or place I know little about so when I saw that The Mercies told the story of a remote Norwegian island full of women after the men are virtually wiped out by a terrible storm, I was immediately interested. The Mercies is a fictionalised account of true events involving witch trials in Vardø in the 17th century. It is a swirling mix of atmosphere, love, intensity, fear and feminism and I absolutely devoured it.

The Mercies is a slow burn of a book – at least at first. The story builds and builds at a clever and subtle pace until it reaches it’s incredibly emotional crescendo and I desperately didn’t want it to end. It is full of beautiful, lyrical prose which creates the perfect eerie and other worldly atmosphere for this story. This book is entirely about the women. It’s about the strength women can draw from one another but also the cruelty with which they can tear each other apart. The women of Vardø find themselves in a challenging and unusual situation but they find the strength to create and sustain a life for themselves in the wake of a tragedy. The rhythm they find is empowering which makes it all the more troubling when a man arrives to take charge and destroys the community they have created.

A commissioner from Scotland (a country famous for the sheer volume of it’s witch trials at the time) is recruited and arrives in Vardø with his new wife in tow. He sees darkness and sorcery in anything and anybody who doesn’t fit with his and the patriarchal system’s ideals. The Mercies really highlights the corrosive sexism of witch hunting and and also the duplicity of men like the commissioner who use fear and lies to benefit themselves and bolster their egos. There is a great deal of darkness in this story but there is also love. The relationship that slowly grows between Maren, a Vardø woman and Ursa, the commissioner’s naive but kindhearted new wife is beautifully nuanced and incredibly touching. It is a relationship full of small moments and touches which convey a deeper passion and it is the real heart of the novel. Overall, all I can say is that The Mercies is a gorgeously written book that I would recommend to anyone.

This was an interesting novel. I liked what it did for the most part but found in the 30-50% area it was quite dry and it was a bit of slog to read. The areas explored were different and i liked what Hargrave did but i felt the story was a bit flat and meandering at times and it could have been written in a way that was less like this. I liked the ensemble of women and thought, for the most part, they were distinguishable but a couple were quite similar and for that reason, forgettable.

4.5 stars

THE MERCIES was all dark atmosphere, engaging story, conspiracies and foreboding. It required my total engagement from the first page and I gave it willingly. The writing was sublime and something special that it could take such a bleak context and turn it into such an exciting read.

Narrated from the POV of two very different young women, THE MERCIES told the story of a remote fishing village at the remotest tip of Norway. It started in the midst of a storm that wiped out the men on their boats, leaving the women of the village bereft, grieving and with a need to sustain themselves. The slow revealing of characters in the village was a strength to the storytelling, which was very much about trust and mistrust. Maren was a strong and vital young woman, caring for her family and village. They were Lutheran (I think) but they also kept some Sami traditions and rituals.

Time passed and with it, it brought a man tothe village. His purpose was to herald structure and Christian godliness back in the village, with him came his wife, Ursa, the second protagonist. She was weak and unused to hardship but she had character growth that was a great part of the story.

Remember the mistrust? What started as a rumble, became a full blown witch hunt in literal terms. The patriachy was in full throttle and the pack behaviour of some of the women had me wanting to disassociate myself with my gender. That said, I had all sorts of feelings and inner monologue about women knowing only patriarchy and how that affected them when all the men had gone. It was a mess, it was unsettling and then it was hideous.

Suffice it to say that this read gave me all the feelings, some good, many not. Some of the best reads are unsettling, make you feel extreme emotions and drop you at the end. I felt winded and rewarded. What a read, what a writer Kiran Millwood Hargrave is and please can I devour all her books now?

Breathtakingly beautiful, mesmerising, lingering and consuming, I drank in this astonishing novel quickly and fell in love.

Inspired by real events, the story begins on Christmas Eve 1617 when a terrible storm hits the remote island of Vardø and kills the forty men at sea, leaving the island now one of mostly women. Slowly they learn to survive without them, taking on roles usually for men in a bid to survive. A year later, just as things feel like they’ve settled, the island is disrupted again by the arrival of a new commissioner from Scotland. The women are wary, unsure what this means for them, and soon they find themselves caught up in the witch trials of the era, with neighbour turning against neighbour as they face a new battle for survival.

It’s taken a while to be able to get my thoughts about this book down in a review I felt would do it justice and in that time I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I first heard about this book last year when author Elizabeth Macneal raved about it on her page and I immediately knew I needed to read it. I read this book as part of a readalong with the Tandem Collective. It was my first readalong with them. It made it a much more immersive and sensory experience and increased my already high excitement for the book.

It is a story about sisterhood, a matriarchal society that is still beholden to the rule of men. It is a story about love, relationships, bravery, power and betrayal; about witchcraft, folklore and faith. At the centre is the story of a friendship of two women just trying to survive in a harsh and terrifying time.

It is told through the eyes of two women from very different backgrounds: Maren was raised in Vardø and knows nothing but the bleak, harsh landscape and the drudgery of life in the far north. Ursa was raised in the city and the new bride is shocked at the barren, hard circumstances she must now live in and struggles to adjust. The two form a quick and unexpected bond, becoming eachother’s confidant and balm. I liked both narrators and their different voices. They were both kind,sympathetic characters and had strengths they didn’t recognise in themselves. For Ursa the culture shock of life Vardø, her dismay at finding herself married to a man who shows little affection or attention to her and missing her family, combines into a deep depression she can’t pull herself out of. Maren becomes a beacon of light pulling her from the dark as they bond when Maren teaches her how to keep house. Maren is used to the realities of life in Vardø but finds herself ashamed of how she lives and shocked at Ursa’s innocence and incapability. Ursa is a beautiful being and she feels honoured to have been asked to teach her. She is her escape, just as Maren is hers. I enjoyed their friendship and how Ursa in particular fought for it when others didn’t approve, saying Maren wasn’t good enough.

Every story needs a villain and the biggest villain in this story was Absolom, Ursa’s husband. He was a vile, cruel man who uses his religion to justify his actions. We know early on that he’s there to root out the evil that is believed to reside in Vardø but Ursa knows nothing of this or his past. When she learns the truth she is horrified and afraid. He had no redeeming qualities and got more repugnant as the story went on and I was terrified of what would become of both women as they skated on the edge of what is considered acceptable in their society.

The writing in this book is simply beautiful. With lyrical and elegant prose that tells the story fluently, this is an example of storytelling at its finest. It is my first time reading a book by this author but I do have one of her others on my shelf and am even more impatient to read it now.

The Mercies is an exquisite, powerful and enchanting read that seeped right into my soul. It is as stunning inside as it is on the outside and I’ve no doubt it will be one of my favourite books this year. READ THIS BOOK.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for sending me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was looking forward this given how much I enjoyed The Deathless Girls by the same author. This is her first book for adults. It’s highly atmospheric – there’s a bleakness and coldness that run throughout. This is a book about witch trials, but more than that, it’s a book about people. There are themes of feminism, social class, and prejudice.

It’s beautifully written. I found it slow to start, but things began to pick up once Ursa was introduced. I really liked the two main characters, women from very different backgrounds, and their relationship.

This is a great book, with its evocative setting and well-crafted story. The ending made my heart ache. Definitely worth reading.