Rose’s review of The Witch’s Trinity by Erika Mailman
Historical fiction (hardcover) released by Crown on 25 Sept 07
The Witch’s Trinity is a well told story that grabs your attention and keeps it throughout the book. It shows how desperation can bring out the absolute worst in us and make some do things that in good times would be unthinkable.
The characters are well written and realistic. It’s such an interesting tale with such great insight into a world that seems so distant to us, but in other parts of the world might not be so far fetched. I recommend this book to anyone interested in a bit of history, spun with a fascinating tale of despair, faith and mysticism.
(By the way, not Romance… at all!!)
Grade: A
Book summary:
The year is 1507, and a friar has arrived in Tierkinddorf, a remote German village nestled deeply in the woods. The village has been suffering a famine, and the villagers are desperately hungry. The friar’s arrival is a miracle, and when he claims he can restore the town to prosperity, the men and women gathered to hear him rejoice. The friar has a book called the Malleus Maleficarum—“The Witch’s Hammer”—a guide to gaining confessions of witchcraft. The friar promises he will identify the guilty woman who has brought God’s anger upon the town; she will be burned, and bounty will be restored. Tierkinddorf is filled with hope. Neighbors wonder aloud who has cursed them and how quickly can she be found? They begin sharing secrets with the friar.
Güde Müller, an elderly woman, has stark and frightening visions—recently she has seen things that defy explanation. None in the village know this, and Güde herself worries that perhaps her mind has begun to wander—certainly she has outlived all but one of her peers in Tierkinddorf. Yet of one thing she is absolutely certain: She has become an object of scorn and a burden to her son’s wife. In these desperate times her daughter-in-law would prefer one less hungry mouth at the family table. As the friar turns his eye on each member of the tiny community, Güde dreads what her daughter-in-law might say to win his favor.
Then one terrible night Güde follows an unearthly voice and the scent of charred meat into the snow-filled woods. Come morning, she no longer knows if the horror she witnessed was real or imagined. She only knows that if the friar hears of it, she may be damned in this life as well as the next.
Read an excerpt.
