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1600s: In a time of suspicion and accusation, to be a woman is the greatest risk of all . . .
The Familiars
What you need to know before your trail
Fleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married, and pregnant for the fourth time. But as the mistress at Gawthorpe Hall, she still has no living child, and her husband Richard is anxious for an heir. When Fleetwood finds a letter she isn’t supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth, she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy.
Then she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife. Alice promises to help her give birth to a healthy baby, and to prove the physician wrong.
As Alice is drawn into the witchcraft accusations that are sweeping the north-west, Fleetwood risks everything by trying to help her. But is there more to Alice than meets the eye?
Soon the two women’s lives will become inextricably bound together as the legendary trial at Lancaster approaches, and Fleetwood’s stomach continues to grow. Time is running out, and both their lives are at stake.
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Travel BookTrail style to Lancaster and Pendle Hill
Fleetwhood and Richard Shuttleworth, Alice Gray , Roger Nowell, the Device Family and many other characters in the novel were real people. A fact which really helps to bring this novel to life. These strange events, the story line and the happenings are fiction but seem to be very realistic and true for the time. That’s the scary thing. This book’s plot might not have happened but it could have and it probably did in some form or other.
Fleetwood was born in 1695 and she was mistress of Gawthorpe Hall during the time of the Witch trials. There’s no real evidence that she had any contact with Alice as she does in the story, yet her husband Richard, was present as the Assizes when Alice and the other suspected witches, went on trial.
Alice and her life has not been documented apart from Thomas Potts’ account of the trial. Her fate in the novel was a subject of controversy.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Familiars
Destination: Lancashire, Pendle Hill Author/guide: Stacey Halls Departure Time: 1600s
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