The Familiars - Stacey Halls Audiobook

Written by Stacey Halls
Read by Billie Fulford-Brown
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Harlequin Audio
Release date: February 19, 2019
Duration: 09:44:30

To save her unborn child, she will trust a stranger.

To protect her secret, she must risk her life.

1612 Pendle Hill, England

Young Fleetwood Shuttleworth is with child again. As the mistress of Gawthorpe Hall, she is anxious to provide her husband with an heir. But none of her previous pregnancies have come to term. Then she discovers a hidden letter from her physician that warns her husband that she will not survive another pregnancy.

Distraught over the frightening revelation, Fleetwood wanders the woods of Pendle Hill, where she comes across a young local woman named Alice Gray who is gathering herbs. A midwife, Alice promises Fleetwood she can help her deliver a healthy baby. But soon Alice is drawn into the frenzied accusations of witchcraft sweeping the countryside. Even the woodland creatures, the “familiars,” are suspected of practicing the dark arts. Can Fleetwood trust that Alice is really who she says she is?

As the two women’s lives become intertwined, Fleetwood must risk everything to prove Alice’s innocence in order to save her own unborn child. The hunt for witches reaches fever pitch. Time is running out. The trials are about to begin. Both their lives are at stake. Only they know the truth. Only they can save each other.

Set against the Pendle Witch Trials of 1612, this rich and compelling novel draws its characters from historical figures as it explores the lives and rights of seventeenth-century women, ultimately raising the question: Is witch-hunting really just women-hunting?

DEBUT Halls’s first novel is set against the backdrop of the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials and features 17-year-old noblewoman Fleetwood Shuttleworth, who is happily married and mistress of one of the greatest mansions in Lancashire. The only thing she lacks is an heir. After three miscarriages, Fleetwood is pregnant for the fourth time when she discovers a letter from a doctor to her husband, warning that she will not survive another pregnancy. Taking her health into her own hands, Fleetwood engages local midwife Alice Gray to help her deliver a healthy baby. But when Alice is implicated in the witch hunt sweeping the county and arrested, Fleetwood must find a way to save her friend, and by extension her own life, even if it means going against her husband and the town magistrates. VERDICT A relatable first-person narrator helps make the history of this thoroughly researched novel feel more approachable. A solid addition to all fiction collections, with teen appeal. Copyright 1 Library Journal,