The Dance Tree made me feel connected to all of the women who have ever lived and to the ways in which oppression, love, and sisterhood link us across generations.

The Mercies’ also suffered somewhat from the Bury Your Gays trope / Dead Lesbian Syndrome, where LGBT+ relationships are frustrated or denied fulfilment, either through death or permanent separation.

HNS Awards have helped discover and launch the author careers of Michel Faber, Ruth Downie, Hilary Green, Martin Sutton, Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott, Nikki Marmery, Margaret Skea, Warwick Cairns, Katherine Mezzacappa and Elizabeth Macneal. Exploring themes of motherhood, misogyny, the patriarchy and forbidden love, the author utilises this moment in history as a great catalyst for examining issues that are still central to our contemporary concerns.

On a visit to the village, she sees a woman who is in a dancing-type trance which has captivated the village and is growing with more women joining in, to the consternation of the town and leaders. She feels some of the power a priest must, giving each animal their place, clearing them of their panic, their confusion. May be because both the historical episode and setting as well as the story are rather slim, something else had to give body to the novel.

Hargrave notes that incidents of choreomania were – if not common – recurrent in Medieval times, rationalised as religious mania, and what seems to me to be the nub of this novel is the fact that ‘[o]ften, the dancers were society’s most vulnerable, whether through class, age, race, or gender. These women, Lisbet, Ida and Agnethe - marginalized, with no power or freedom, embody the strength and courage that women today will need as men try to control their health, their bodies, their choices. i wasn't as captivated as i wanted to be but i liked the characters and it provided detailed insight. In the background of the book, is a hungry woman, near death with starvation, who begins to dance, almost trance-like in the city square. Less description on a surface level and deeper characterisation would have provided greater scope for complexity in the narrative that would have elevated the novel.