The Witching Tide

By: Margaret Meyer

Narrated by: Miranda Raison

Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

“Stylish and raw…seizes the reader’s sympathy and does not let go.” —Anne Enright, Booker Prize–winning author of The Gathering

For readers of Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel, an immersive literary debut inspired by historical events—a deadly witch hunt in 17th-century England—that claimed many innocent lives.

East Anglia, 1645. Martha Hallybread, a midwife, healer, and servant, has lived peacefully for more than four decades in her beloved seaside village of Cleftwater. Having lost her voice as a child, Martha has not spoken a word in years.

One autumn morning, a sinister newcomer appears in town. The witchfinder, Silas Makepeace, has been blazing a trail of destruction along the coast, and now has Cleftwater in his sights. His arrival strikes fear into the heart of the community. Within a day, local women are being captured and detained, and Martha finds herself a silent witness to the hunt.

Powerless to protest, Martha is enlisted to search the accused women for “devil’s marks.” She is caught between suspicion and betrayal; between shielding herself or condemning the women of the village. In desperation, she revives a wax witching doll that belonged to her mother, in the hope that it will bring protection. But the doll’s true powers are unknowable, Martha harbors a terrible secret, and the gallows are looming…

Set over the course of just a few weeks that will forever change history, The Witching Tide delivers powerful and psychologically astute insights about the exigencies of friendship and the nature of loyalty, and heralds the arrival of a striking new voice in fiction.

©2023 Margaret Meyer (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

Very Repetitive

Really wanted to live this book as historical fiction is my thing. Saw it reviewed in NYTimes and eagerly used my credit on it. First the good — the main character is intriguing, mysterious and well constructed. The story was also well-researched and ripe for a spotlight. The writing was evocative and original. Now for the less good — the secondary characters are mostly stock types — the haughty mistress, the evil jailer, the pompous judge, etc. no background or insight is given into why they act as they do. And the plot was thin and so repetitive with scene after scene going “You’re a witch!”; “No Im not!”; “Yes you are”; “No Im not” ad nauseam. And the contemporary feminism (of which I am a fan) was just too on the nose, out of place.

Great book

This is the perfect historical fiction book I was looking for. Great witchy vibes and unforgettable characters. Haunting, immersive, beautifully written. I loved it!

Dark, convoluted and story doesn't make sense

I gave up 45 minutes before finishing - while there are some passages of beautiful writing, the storyline was so slow, so dark, and in the end, it lacked direction - no climax in sight. To avoid spoilers, I'll just say that a situation towards the end of the book got resolved somehow and I had no idea how it happened. The characters lacked real substance and I didn't care about or feel for any of them. The mute protagonist who was somehow understood by everyone by waving her hands seemed a pointless device. Most of all though, the story itself was slow, unclear and without any light or direction. I kept waiting to get a clearer sense of the point of it all - we all know the witch hunts were atrocities so that is nothing new. I hung in there almost to the end but decided I didn't want to spend any more of my valuable listening time on this book.