ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster

The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster is published by Pan Macmillan and is out now. My thanks to the publishers for the proof copy.

Inspired by an infamous real-life case, The Mourning Necklace is the unforgettable feminist historical novel from the Women’s Prize-longlisted author of The Maiden, Kate Foster.

They said I would swing for the crime, and I did . . .

1724. In a tavern just outside Edinburgh, Maggie Dickson’s family drown their sorrows, mourning her death yet relieved she is gone. Shame haunts them. Hanged for the murder of her newborn child, passers-by avert their eyes from her cheap coffin on its rickety cart.

But as her family pray her soul rests in peace, a figure appears at the door.

It is Maggie. She is alive.

Bruised and dazed, Maggie has little time for her family’s questions. All that matters to her is answering this one: will they hang her twice?

The Mourning Necklace offers up a fantastical story, one of Maggie Dickson who was hanged for the murder of her baby and yet lives to tell the tale. What makes this even more fascinating is that it’s based on real events and Maggie really did exist, although I think there’s rather more owed to fiction than fact in this book. Kate Foster has woven a compelling story around the scant details that are known about Maggie and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

The book opens on Hanging Day and then takes the reader back in time to Fisherrow, the village where Maggie grew up and where her family lives. We witness her longing to escape the gutting of fish and her boorish da and make her way to London. When events take her away to Kelso in the Scottish borders she believes herself to be well on her way but it seems that nothing really goes Maggie’s way, leading to the hanging and all that happens to her afterwards.

Foster has done a brilliant job of fleshing out the details that are known about Maggie and by using rich historical detail she’s written an immersive story that transported me from the harbour at Fisherrow to the sights and sounds of 18th century Edinburgh. Maggie is a survivor in every sense of the word, feisty and wily but still a victim of being a woman in such times.

This is the third book by Kate Foster that I have read and I’ve enjoyed them all very much. She’s a writer whose books I would pick up without hesitation. Highly recommended for all historical fiction fans.

Kate Foster worked as a national newspaper journalist for more than twenty years before becoming an author. Growing up in Edinburgh, she became fascinated by its history and often uses it as inspiration for her stories. Her previous novels include The Maiden, which won the Bloody Scotland Crime Debut of the Year and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The King’s Witches. The Mourning Necklace is her third novel. She lives in Edinburgh with her two children.