Pyett’s contemporaries came very close to burning her as a Lollard, simply for professing the visions she had. Her descriptions of The Fens breathe a unique beauty into the stagnant and miasmic nature of marshlands, her passionate yet restrained depiction of a strange young girl’s first kiss will leave you enraptured, and her mastery of suspense will make your hair stand on end. As she begins to become aware of the chilling threats that her dangerous father poses, she finds no-one will listen, indeed threatening her instead, for having the temerity to tarnish Edmund's reputation.

Wakenhyrst’ by Michelle Paver – We Women of Horror ‘Wakenhyrst’ by Michelle Paver – We Women of Horror

Part of Edmund Stearne’s mental decline has to do with his obsession with a historical local woman, Alice Pyett, who lived during the late 1400s and allegedly experienced visions of demons and hell, before being saved by Jesus Christ and embarking on numerous pilgrimages across Europe.So you may forgive me, that I had Michelle Paver down as a middle grade author until I saw Wakenhyrst on the shelf at the same library but this time in the adult section of “new and notable releases”. The feeling of profound menace runs throughout and was responsible for creating a tense and unforgettable tale.

Wakenhyrst – Michelle Paver

That said Maud is an interesting character, she feels realistic and well-rounded for a lady of her time with enough intelligence to realise her limitations. Her ability to capture emotions, in Edmund Stearn's case "disdain" toward everyone and especially toward women, and individualize the personalities made it possible to identify a particular point of view or the set of values the different characters had. Speaking of ludicrous phenomena, I really enjoyed how Paver explores the similarity between the practises of Maud’s religious father, and the superstitious practices of the villagers and house staff. I liked the authors note at the end of the book that explains where she got her ideas from – which bits of the story came from history and which bits came from her life or were inspired from somewhere that she had visited.

The reader will find page after page (or minute upon minute) of Edmund Stearn writing about himself in his journal. If you spilled salt, you had to toss a pinch over your left shoulder; but was that to bind the devil…or was it because Judas Iscariot spilled salt at the last supper? Eigentlich hat dieses Buch alles, was ich mag, und doch hat es mich nicht gänzlich überzeugen können. We meet Maud as a child in the repressive isolation and secrecy of Wake’s End as she grapples with the loss of her mother and struggles under her father’s commanding presence. Edward Stearne is also a really nicely drawn character – his descent into madness and paranoia kept me gripped throughout and you could really see the ‘logical’ steps in his actions.