Technically the first book I started reading this year, but was interrupted by the bookclub read, so now my second read of the year was ‘The Familars‘ by Stacey Halls. There was a lot of hype around this last year, and it had some intriguing cover art (plus throw in the word ‘witchcraft’ to a synopsis and i’m on it!!) so thats how it ended up on my TBR.
The Familiars is a story about an unlikely friendship. Fleetwood Shuttleworth is from a noble family, she is pregnant with her fourth child and scared. As, to the dissapointment of her husband, she has never carried a baby to term. Alice Grey, is a midwife from a poor background with an impressive knowledge of herbs. A chance encounter in the middle of a wood throws the two women together and intertwines their fate.
Fleetwoods pregnancy progresses further than she’s ever carried before, with the help of Alice. However, in the world of novels, things never quite run smoothly and soon Alice stands accused of witchcraft. As Fleetwood despairs for the fate of her friend she soon finds herself in a desperate situation and the only way for both women to survive is to uncover a few dark secrets.
This was such an easy read, the story flowed so smoothly and the characters were very engaging. I particularly liked how the character of Fleetwoods husband, Richard, was written. As throughout the whole book you’re finding yourself changing your mind as to the type of person he is, and I still don’t really know if he is what I would class as a ‘good’ person.
So to the stats – this one gets ticked off my popsugar reading challenge. To my delight as soon as I opened the book it had a map of Lancashire, so thats the ‘A book with a map’ prompt ticked off without even trying. I could technically use it for the ‘Book I meant to read in 2019’ but I get a feeling i’m going to be reading a lot that’ll fit into that category, so I’ll leave it for now.
Also, it’s my first book to check off my read and redistribute tally.
I’ve set up a few Wild libraries around Felixstowe so I dropped it off in one of those.
Adventures of a Book Dragon 