If you loved The Merciesby Kiran Millwood Hargrave, which was based in the times of an earlier Vardo witch trial, then The Witches of Vardowill be the perfect book to put to the top of your to be read pile.

The King may think he is all-powerful, but the three women in the story shall show the world an even greater power. Witches at 'Gates of Hell': Norway's darkest hour". www.thelocal.no. 2013-07-06 . Retrieved 2019-10-25.In 1687, a requirement for judgements in witchcraft cases to be heard at parliament before a death sentence could be carried out became law. Norway's last known witch execution took place in 1695. The law remained in place until a widespread criminal reform in the 19th century. The two parts of the memorial. Photo: Helge Stikbakke / Statens vegvesen The Steilneset memorial

Anya Bergman said: ‘I am thrilled to have found the perfect home for The Witches of Vardø at Manilla Press with Kate (Parkin), Margaret (Stead), and Justine (Taylor). The team is incredibly talented and dedicated and I know they will do a fantastic job bringing my story to life. I am so grateful to my agent Marianne Gunn O’Connor for believing in me, and my passion project about the witch trials of Norway, and for bringing my work to readers all over the world.’

This intricate historical fiction story is inspired by actual real events of witch hunts which took place on the island of Vardo in 1661-1662 and is meticulously researched. It’s a beautifully intriguing and yet horrific story. I loved the female characters, the magic and folklore.

And this is the way I see it and I read beautiful and horrifying discussions of it in The Winternight Trilogy, The Glass Woman, and The Mercies. I hoped The Witches of Vardo would enrich my knowledge and experience with this topic, but it made me bored and angry instead. It is said that at times there were no families in Finnmark who were not affected by the proceedings, either as prosecutors, witnesses or convicts. The Domen trials of 1662-63 Recently widowed Zigri Sigvaldsdatter is sent to the fortress at Vardø to be tried as a witch when her affair with a local merchant is discovered. Her daughter Ingeborg sets off into the wilderness to seek a way to bring her mother home. She is accompanied by Maren, herself the daughter of a condemned witch. Maren has a wild, unconquerable spirit and gives Ingeborg the courage to venture into the unknown and to risk all she has to save her family. I remember being very hungry at one point but not wanting to leave my reading spot to go and get food. I ended up with an omelette -taking care of course to crush the egg shells into thousands of pieces…..(important to protect against witches it seems.)Overall, ‘The Witches of Vardø’ is an incredible debut and a superb example of literary historical fiction. It is extremely engaging and meticulously researched. I had a real sense of the deep connection that Anya Bergman felt to her subject. Guttormsen, Torgrim Sneve; Swensen, Grete (2016-12-05). Heritage, Democracy and the Public: Nordic Approaches. Routledge. ISBN 9781317122319.

The Steilneset Memorial, often called the “The Witches’ Memorial”, is a monument to 91 people who were burned as witches during the period of 1600 to 1692 in Vardø. The memorial consists of a building, designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, and the “Flammehuset” artwork featuring a sculpture by the Franco–American artist Louise Bourgeois. The witch trials were a European wide phenomenon Vardø is an island community in the far north-east of Norway. In the days before airplanes and motorcars, Vardø and the entire county of Finnmark were truly remote places.

Like with Burial Rites (which is also inspired by a true story, that of the last burned witch, which also happened to be in the Nordic country of Iceland) I found this to be a tremendous story of women and womanhood. In the winter and spring of 1621 a witch trial took place at the fortress of Vardøhus in Vardø, the center of Norwegian Finnmark. There a woman from Kiberg, Mari Jørgensdatter, was interrogated under torture on 21 January. She said that Satan had come to her at night at Christmas 1620 and asked her to follow him to the house of her neighbor Kirsti Sørensdatter. He asked her if she would serve him, and she said yes, after which he gave her the witch's brand by biting her between the fingers of her left hand. [3] On June 23, 2011 Norway's Queen Sonja opened the Steilneset Memorial to the Victims of the Witch Trials in Vardø, a new monument by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor and the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois. It is also hoped that the Steilneset Memorial will draw visitors to a remote and economically depressed region of Norway. The Vardø project is also part of the Norwegian Public Roads administration’s National Tourist Routes program, through which distinctive buildings are being erected to encourage visits to outposts of exceptional natural beauty. I’d like to thank NetGalley and Zaffre UK for approving me for an ARC of this book. This was one of my highly anticipated read of 2023 and it did not disappoint. Ingeborg’s mother, Zigri, lost her husband and son to a tragic storm while fishing, and she blames Ingeborg’s younger sister, Kirsten, for it. Witch fever can even turn women against each other and mothers against daughters.