The mercies A novel

This dark, dramatic historical from Hargrave (The Girl of Ink & Stars) begins on Christmas Eve 1617 when 40 men from Norway's remote island settlement of Vardø die in a storm at sea, setting in motion events that lead to witch trials and executions. Maren Magnusdatter, age 20, having lost her father, brother, and fiancé in the storm, lives quietly in Vardø with her mother and sister-in-law Diinna, of the Sámi people. That changes with the arrival of noted witch-hunter Commissioner Absalom Cornet, who comes from Scotland with his Norwegian wife, Ursa, to root out nonbelievers. Unused to such meager conditions, Ursa hires Maren to help her with household chores. Their friendship grows, as does Ursa's fear of her husband, an enthusiastic participant in the branding, strangling, and burning of suspected witches. Encouraged by the feudal lord who brought him to Vardø, Cornet seeks out nonchurchgoers in a crusade against evil that puts Diinna and other Sámis at risk. Eventually, Cornet arrests two local widows, tortures and burns them at the stake, then comes to arrest Maren, while Maren and Ursa turn to each other for affection and support. Hargraves's tale offers a feminist take on a horrific moment in history with its focus on the subjugation of women, superstition in isolated locations, and brutality in the name of religion. This is a potent novel. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Associates. (Feb.)

Christianity arrived late in northern Scandinavia, and in the early 17th-century vestiges of Sami pagan beliefs still abound. When nearly all the men from a small Norwegian fishing village drown in a freak winter storm and the women who remain manage to survive on their own, newly pious ministers of the crown suspect witchcraft. Spurred by Protestant leader King James of Scotland, who authored a witch-hunting screed called Daemonologie, a few of these ministers make their way to the village to rout out and try likely suspects. The novel is told in the voices of two women who are drawn together by both necessity and physical attraction: Maren, a native of the village whose sister-in-law is Sami; and Ursula from refined Bergen, the young bride of a cruel government minister. Ursula is unprepared for life in the rugged North, and her sadistic husband cares only to advance his career through witch trials. VERDICT The latest from Hargrave (The Deathless Girls) is slow paced and deliberate, as if dreading its own unhappy denouement. It's strength lies in the richly researched details of primitive Norwegian village life, which illustrate how the women scrape a livelihood from the barren subarctic. [See Prepub Alert, 8/1/19.]--Reba Leiding, emerita, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA

On an icy, dark island, men hunt witches and women fight back.British poet and playwright Hargrave plucks a piece of 400-year-old legal historya European king's prosecution of 91 people for witchcraftand gives it a feminist spin. The story opens in 1617 in the Arctic Circle, with a historic, strangely sudden storm off the island of Vard. Maren, 20, has run to the harbor as her father, brother, and fiance founder in boats at sea. "All about her, other mothers, sisters, daughters are throwing themselves at the weather: dark, rain-slick shapes, clumsy as seals." Forty men drown in the Christmas Eve storm, leaving their Norwegian womenfolk in a treeless village, sunk in winter darkness. The women winch the men's corpses off the rocks, up the cliffs, and store them in a boathouse; the ground is far too frozen to breach. They butcher reindeer and, after much dissention, split over the radical step of going to sea to fish for themselves. News reaches the authorities, who send first a preacher, then someone more sinister, Scotsman Absalom Cornet, who has already executed a woman for witchery. He brings a bewildered new wife, Ursa, a young city woman, ignorant of her husband's history. She forms a fast, unlikely bond with Maren. To Absalom, the lethal storm seems suspiciously supernatural and the customs of the local LaplandersSmi peoplean abomination. The tension ratchets across the novel's three sections: "Storm," "Arrival," and "Hunt." The womendivided, watchful, unlettered, and bereavedare prey, but they are not helpless. In clean, gripping sentences the author is wonderfully tuned to the ways and gestures of a seemingly taciturn people. "Even writing at a distance of four hundred years, I found much to recognize," she states in her historical note. "This story is about people, and how they lived; before why and how they died became what defined them." This chilling tale of religious persecution is served up with a feminist bite. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.