Is Tidelands based on real history?

The novel is set in England in 1648, during the civil war between King and Parliament, and the publisher's blurb praises the research behind it.

Is Tidelands a story about witchcraft?

It is set in a time of witch-mania. Alinor, a woman without a husband who is skilled with herbs, becomes a target for envy and fear in her village.

Tidelands

A herb-wise woman of the marshes, a fugitive from the war, and a village ready to turn on her.

Reading guide

This is a single novel, so there is no order to follow. It can be read on its own from the first page.

On Midsummer's Eve 1648, Alinor waits in a moonlit graveyard for a ghost who might declare her free of her abusive husband. Instead she meets James, a young man on the run from the war, and shows him the secret paths across the marsh, unaware of what she is bringing into her life.

Description

Tidelands is a single novel by Philippa Gregory, set on the marshy south coast of England in 1648, when civil war between King and Parliament reaches even the remotest parts of the kingdom. Alinor, poor, skilled with herbs and descended from wise women, is waiting for a ghost on Midsummer's Eve when she meets James, a young man on the run, and leads him along the secret paths across the marsh.

Gregory writes the tidal landscape and its hard, ordinary lives with real care. Alinor's ambition and independence set her apart in a village quick to envy and fear, and in an age of witch-mania a woman without a husband is an easy target. It suits readers drawn to the overlooked women of English history.

Books in this Series

Tidelands

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