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

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The women are tortured to extract confessions: deprived of sleep, starved, dehydrated, and led on enforced continuous walks through the night leaving a trail of bloody footprints. We are repugnant to Nature, contumely to God; We are monstrous, legion; We are too many, We are never enough." Meyer composed a deeply moving novel that may be set against witch trials, but the themes of misogyny, internalized misogyny, male privilege, religious zealotry, bigotry, ableism, and more are all interwoven in an even, seamless pattern that starts off as simply ominous until all common sense, human compassion, or even a sense of human decency has been bled out of Martha’s village of Cleftwater. Then, and only then, when the village has hit its lowest low, can the tide begin to change. By this time, Cleftwater is left with a collective trauma. The Witching Tide, a story about witch hunting in the 17th Century, is what I want historical fiction to be. Not just well written, but also enlightening. It’s a reminder that men held all the power and when things go wrong, it’s women that bear the pain. Even the drunkards’ words held more sway than a sober woman. Being rich provided no safety net. Even a careless remark by a priest could land him in hot water. In desperation, Martha revives a poppet, a wax witching doll that she inherited from her mother, in the hope that it will bring protection. But the poppet's true powers are unknowable, the tide is turning, and time is running out . . .

The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer: Haunting, harrowing and

Terror and mass hysteria ensue. Soon Martha witnesses other women in her community rounded up and detained by Makepiece. She takes bread to the accused women in gaol. Martha, our one POV character, is mute, which forced her—and by extension, us readers—to bear silent witness to the atrocities around her. Her outrage and fear had no outlet. CM: One of the things I admired in your novel is the way you show the transference of that archetype through a group of women. In the witch trials there was this idea of contagion: the fear of the coven. But the central figure is Martha Hallybread who is an ingenious protagonist because she is literally unable to speak. How did you come to her?A haunting debut read inspired by the events of the East Anglian witch hunt of 1645-7. Margaret Meyer, dedicates her book to the more than 100 innocent women who lost their lives. Even though she has written fiction, Margaret's story is underpinned by facts - true stories of real people. She turned to books by historian Malcolm Gaskill, Lowestoft’s Ivan Bunn, and a book on midwifery by the 17th century writer Jane Sharp. 'In the early stages of writing I would spend hours on research,' says Margaret. 'I call it composting, where you collect material to build your world. Like a magpie, I gathered information about the period to understand the ambience, the atmosphere. And it was a stinky old time, the 17th century, no flushing toilets! So I spent a fascinating couple of days researching piss alleys.' It’s easy to empathize with Martha, especially since we get a front seat view to her innermost thoughts. She finds joy in caring for Kit, her employer, who she has raised since she was a baby, and kind of views as her own family. Working as a midwife and healer, she interacts with basically everyone in the village. There’s a sense of foreshadowing throughout the story, probably because I already know how witch trials went. But Martha and her friend deliver a baby with a cleft palate, which was a fatal deformity at that time, and she humanely kills the baby to stop it from suffering. But shortly after this, the witch finder arrives looking for trouble, and won’t stop looking until he finds it.

The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer - Books - Hachette The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer - Books - Hachette

I could feel their emotions as I read this book. Some of them weren't pleasant but mostly scary and fearful. And even at that stage, I was only going to write a novella of 25,000 words, but as I worked away, the word count went steadily up: I hit 25,000 words, and had only scratched the surface. One of the lecturers said well, publishers here like first novels to be between 60,000 or 80,000 words, so keep going, hit 60,000, then you’ve got a novel. The manuscript ultimately ended up at 90,000 words and by then I had been approached by an agent and the publishing process unfolded from there. The last few chapters were from after Martha and Jennet survived being hanged, but we never know why they were saved—the roads were supposed to be flooded with the judge out of town, so him showing up last minute is odd already, but what evidence did he have to convince him neither were witches? We never find out.

The novel poses big questions: In extreme circumstances would you take a stand against a perceived injustice if it meant risking losing your own life? And how do you hold onto your own sense of integrity when truth and lies have become indistinguishable, and common sense and reason abandoned? CM: I thought it was a clever tool. The poppet seemed to reveal both the ridiculousness of the witch trials – the manipulation of meaning; but also the enduring appeal of possible (and private) magic. What kind of research did you do on the history of the poppet? Martha is a mute servant woman, who also acts as the village’s midwife. The rumors begin flying just as the witchfinder comes to Cleftwater. Soon, everything is being laid at various women’s feet - dead babies, bad winter weather, illnesses, sunken ships, dead animals. No one stops to think how such a small village could hold so many witches. Guards from other towns are brought in and the gaol runs out of space. And then, Martha is corralled into helping examine the women for marks of the devil. One morning, the peaceful atmosphere is violently shattered and Martha becomes a silent witness to a witch hunt. As a trusted member of the community, she is enlisted to search the bodies of the accused women. But whilst Martha wants to help her friends, she also harbours a dark secret. However, a stranger comes to town. His name is Master Makepeace and he is on the hunt for any woman who may be a witch. He wants to rid the town of any evil that he deems is detrimental to the area. Martha is mute and uses a sort of sign language to communicate with her loved ones. This proves a disaster in this kind of situation where everyone is on edge and scared for their lives. Anything seems to be suggestive of being a witch and Martha is in Makepeace's sights.