'Kate Foster is an exceptional writer and masterful storyteller' – Janice Hallett, bestselling author of The Appeal

Inspired by an infamous real-life case, The Mourning Necklace is an unforgettable historical novel from the Women's Prize-longlisted author of The Maiden, Kate Foster.

They said I would swing for the crime and I did. I wear the rope-bruise like a necklace.

1724. In a tavern just outside Edinburgh, Maggie Dickson’s family drown their sorrows, mourning her death yet relieved she is gone. Shame haunts them. Hanged for the murder of her newborn child, passers-by avert their eyes from her cheap coffin on its rickety cart.

But as her family pray her soul rests in peace, a figure appears at the door.

It is Maggie. She is alive.

Bruised and dazed, Maggie has little time for her family’s questions. All that matters to her is answering this one: will they hang her twice?

Praise for Kate Foster:

'Exceptional – a tense, thrilling investigation, with a decidedly feminist slant' – Daily Mail on The Maiden

'Riveting . . . the tension persists until the last page’ – The Times on The Maiden

'Enthralling, compelling and at times chilling . . . An utterly timely tale' – D. V. Bishop, prize-winning author of Ritual of Fire, on The King's Witches