This tale is a great big bundle of historical fiction, mystery, unresolved sibling rivalry, sexual tension in the mid-1600s, and some spooky stuff thrown in for good measure. The general misogyny that resulted in witch mayhem is well described in this book. The author does a tremendous job of describing the ways in which a woman might come under suspicion of being a witch. A woman might have too many children and not pay them enough attention. She might not have a child of her own and yearn too much for one, paying too much attention to the children of others through kindness. A woman might cry too much or not enough when becoming a widow or losing a child to death. In all cases the women finally accused had no one else to speak for them, their husbands dead or run away, same with any children. They were outside any social order, even the lowest, and thus available for shunning.

Enter our Witchfinder, the strangely disfigured brother, Matthew, of our heroine Alice. Once unbelievably close, they have been separated for five years and now rejoin upon the death of Alice's husband. She has nowhere else to go and is pregnant. In the interim, Matthew has become wealthier but distant and strangely odd. As our tale begins, Alice is locked in a room, without food for three days and begins to describe how her brother murdered 106 women.

There is a sense of foreboding and dread that seeps into this tale in ways that are scary and creepy. There are just the right amounts of historical information to whet your appetite for more details as the tale progresses and for google searches on your own. There are secrets within secrets that keep you reading much longer that you planned and possibly keep you up late at night. This is a big, juicy book that I loved.

I’m really on an Ancient Rome kick. After reading Confessions of Young Nero by Margaret George, I went looking for something juicy to follow up. I was not disappointed by Crystal King’s debut historical fiction.

The story follows the slave Thrasius, bought by the disgustingly rich Roman aristocrat Apicius to run his kitchen. Apicius is an already famous gourmand, and he wants to climb to the top of Roman culinary society by becoming an advisor to the Roman Emperor. Willing to go to any expense and any excess to achieve his goal, the book follows Thrasius and Apicius across a sweep of decades.

King has done a masterful job in her debut work. As with any book about Ancient Rome, the drama is high and the casual violence and cruelty is breathtaking. The world occupied by Thrasius and Apicus is vividly wrought, with a great deal of attention paid to historical accuracy. While Thrasius and his fellow slaves are fictional (identities of Roman slaves are understandably shrouded in the historical record), Apicius and his family (and other high-born Romans in this book) were all real people. Apicius himself is credited with the creation of a series of cookbooks, some of which still survive today.

King carefully crafts her major characters, giving them a multifaceted existence which lends complexity and humanity to the story. King also does a wonderful job weaving a number of disparate historical threads together into a coherent story. The span of decades allows the reader to watch as the characters grow and develop.

Any fan of historical fiction will enjoy this book. King has a wonderful (and rare) talent for blending the historical and fictional aspects of the book together, providing needed background without sacrificing pace. This is a fine drama, and should appeal to a wide variety of tastes.

An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

“The Witchfinder’s Sister” by Beth Underdown

Pub. Date: Feb. 27, 2017
Publisher: Penguin Books

In this historical fiction the character of the sister is fictional, but her brother, Matthew Hopkins, was a real person. And, he was a witchfinder. He even had the title of “Witchfinder General” during the English Civil war (1642-1646). (I googled that really was his title). I was hoping to read, learn a bit more about the war between the Royalists, supports of King Charles I and the Parliamentarians, supporters of the rights of Parliament, but the author decided to just educate the reader that fear of witches was pronounced by the general fear in England at this time.

The story is narrated by the sister who is widowed and forced to move back home with her brother. She quickly learns that home is no longer a safe place and her brother has grown into an evil man who longs for power. He insists that she be a part of his witch investigations. The tale reads like a psychological horror story, but is all the more terrifying knowing that such events in history did indeed happen. Hopkins was a frightening monster. “My brother, Matthew set himself to killing women…but without once breaking the law.”

The inhuman methods that Hopkins used in his investigations are difficult to read. Women were tied to a stool and not allowed to sleep for hours which often led to sleep deprived confessions. Females accused were pricked with special needles in their vaginas and if an animal licked the blood they were considered witches. Another example where death is the only outcome is when suspects were tied to a chair and thrown into water: all those who "swam" (floated) were considered to be witches and were then hung. Of course, when the innocent didn’t float they died a watery grave rather than by the gallows.

The author does an impressive job in taking the reader back into this ghastly time in history. I could feel the uncertainty and fear in the villages caused by a righteous lunatic. Who would be next? One daughter gave false evidence against a group of women who lived in her village with the promise that her mother might be spared. I will leave you to guess if mother and daughter lived. The author makes it easy to read between the lines, that the Hopkins’ witch trials had more to do with politics than potions, not to mention gender issues. Now here we are in the year of 2017 and despite all that we know, we still can breed the hysteria that can create a monster. I can’t help but wonder if humankind will ever learn.

A big thank you goes to Beth Underdown, Ballantine Books, and netgalley for this free copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"
"Why hast thou forsaken me"

Really a 3.5 one of the better witch hunt novels I've read especially since it's based on different historical perspective

The Civil War of 1640s England is rolling on, and the hunt for witches is strong in the counties. Women are arrested and persecuted for the the most ludicrous reasons, no proof necessary. And the Roundheads believe that their way of worship and governing is the correct way.

Our fictional character, Alice, returns to town after suffering the loss of her fictional husband, Joseph. She moves in with her brother, the true to life witch hunter Matthew Hopkins. By the end of his life he was responsible for the death of over 100 women accused of witch craft or of consorting with the devil, many of whom admitted guilt. Not much is known about his life outside of his witch trials, so the author takes liberty in this story. But that in no way affects its quality.

The story is told from Alice's point of view. She investigates her brother's activity as well as the secrets kept in her family that went to the grave. Matthew has no respect for females. They are all worthless whores as far as he's concerned. This includes his own sister. He's also suffered from severe scarring from a fire since childhood, which I think has had an affect on his personality.

Whenever I read books like this I always ponder my possible past lives. Had I lived in the 1640s I'm certain I would have been scrutinized as a possible witch. I'm sure of it. I'm too independent, awkward, and isolated, not to mention wanton and opinionated. And I don't go to church. I always wonder if I could have held out through the tests. They sound terrible. No wonder so many pled guilty. They didn't want to suffer the torture any longer. Some went truly mad from the pain and lack of sleep.

Looking through history man seems to cyclically find a populous to intimidate and persecute. The mid 1600s were old or otherwise quirky women. Evidence of religion gone wrong. One reason why I don't trust organized religion.

Readers of historical fiction definitely give this book a look. Quick read with some interesting info

This book was one that I found interesting from the start. It was a pretty slow moving book but I felt that it told the story fairly well. I could sense the pain of Alice not only losing her husband but having multiple miscarriages. She knew the brother she loved and remembered from her childhood was still in Matthew but needed to get out of his shadow. I had a hard time keeping interested in this book because it moved so slow.

In 1645, Alice Hopkins’ husband died in a horrible accident leaving her to return to to the small Essex town of Manningtree where her brother lived to move in with him. Little did Alice know that her brother had changed though with rumors of him having a book of women’s names that accused them of witchcraft. With Alice hiding a pregnancy she slowing begins to uncover the darker side of her brother Matthew.

The Witchfinder’s Sister is a fictional tale based on the real person Matthew Hopkins. Matthew actually was known as a witch hunter in the time the book is based and was known for being responsible for the deaths of 300 women between the years 1644 and 1646. The author has loosely based this fictional tale upon his real life giving readers a look into that era.

I have to say this wasn’t particularly a bad book and I can see some people loving the story but for me I just couldn’t get into most of it due to the slow pacing. The beginning started off rather well and I thought I would also be one loving this read but it became a bit dry for my taste after a while and I just couldn’t get behind Alice or the story she was telling to keep my attention and interest for long.

After pushing through the slowness I didn’t mind the ending of the story too much either but in the end I decided to rate this one at 2.5 stars just for the slowness of the read to me. I liked what the author was trying to do but perhaps there was just too much focus on Alice and not even on Matthew who is the real star of the story to keep up my interest.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

From 1644 to 1646, over 300 women (this is a conservative estimate) lost their lives in Essex, England and the surrounding area. Why? Because they were accused of being witches! Their accuser was Matthew Hopkins and this is his story told by his sister. Not a lot is known about Matthew or his family, making this is a historical fiction. This novel tries to explain why Matthew viciously accused these women, some mentally incapacitated and how he brought about their hangings. Up until this time few women lost their lives for this crime but he changed all this.

This story is told from the viewpoint of Matthew’s sister, Alice. It is told in her voice as she is documenting the horrifying details of the past two years and how she was forced to assist him. In this way, she is attempting to ensure that history would not repeat itself. This method of storytelling allows the author to present details of both their lives which makes the story interesting and page turning. It tells both characters’ past and present lives and the suspense slowly builds as you realize the details that have turned Matthew into the monster that he is. The story comes to a traumatic, shocking conclusion that can’t be foreseen and leaves you shaking your head.

I found this book to be very thought-provoking. Since little is actually known about the Hopkins family, fact and fiction are interspersed throughout. When I was done reading, I was compelled to look up the history of this man and also about the witch hunts that many women lost their lives to. I would recommend this book more for young adult to adult readers because some of the information contained may be disturbing to young readers.

Review from off-centerviews.blogspot.com

The Witchfinder’s Sister. By Beth Underdown. Ballantine Books, 2017, 336 pages.
★★★★

Americans reflexively think of Salem whenever witch trials are conjured. We forget that the Puritans that conducted Salem's horrors were Englishmen, just as we forget that (by some estimates) 50,000 Europeans were executed for witchcraft from 1500 to 1800, 80% of them women. A half century before Salem (1692), witchcraft hysteria swept East Anglia, particularly Essex, Wessex, and Suffolk.

The most notorious of England’s witchfinders were John Stearne and Matthew Hopkins, both of whom figure prominently in Beth Underdown’s gripping debut. Bear in mind that this is a historical novel. Very little is known of the historical Matthew Hopkins (?1620-47), other than the fact his father was a clergyman, and that Matthew moved to Manningtree, Essex sometime around 1640. From there he launched a two-year reign of terror in 1644-46 that saw more 300 individuals arrested, around a hundred of whom were executed. We don’t know if he had a sister, let alone one named Alice, Underdown’s protagonist and narrator. Moreover, Hopkins probably died of TB, not the more satisfying ending Underdown provides. So bear in mind as you read that the story is “true” in its essence, but not in its particulars.

They are mighty fine particulars, though. Underdown gives us a portrait of how hysteria begins small—whispers, gossip, grudges, innuendo¬—and gathers steam when embraced by bullies, demagogues, and fanatics. She imagines Hopkins as more complex than a monster, a true believer who justified doing unspeakable things as advancing God's work. Alice and her associates represent the voices of reason. And never shall the twain meet, especially in a climate rent asunder by the English Civil War. Alice also represents a protest against misogyny, but that too was a cry in the 17th century social wilderness. Thus the catastrophe that unfolded. Underdown uses her invented characters to personalize the tragedy and give us entrée into specifics. Her description of a "swimming," a watery test for malevolence, is particularly vivid and makes us shudder. Ditto her depictions of witch "detection" tactics such as sleep deprivation, walking, watching, and examining for imps.

Most of all, though, the clash between Matthew and Alice over the unfolding events gives us both a micro and macrocosm perspective on the witchcraft trials. It is easy to forget that both accusers and victims were also ordinary people who prepared meals, emptied chamber pots, tended their gardens, mourned lost loved ones, courted, and conducted business. Underdown does a nice job of capturing the rhythms of everyday life without getting bogged down in minutiae that would detract from the central plot. She's also good with suspense. We, the readers, can see Alice's options melt and the walls begin to close in around her. It is to Underwood's credit that we feel like screaming out for Alice to run and keep turning the pages to see if she does.

To be objective, this book also bears some of the weaknesses of a debut novel. Several of the characters are drawn a bit too broadly; others (too) conveniently appear and disappear. Stylistically, I wish Underwood and her editors would learn when to use "her" and when to use "she." You can decide for yourself if she went over the top with her ending. I understand the allure of delicious irony, but sometimes it's better to leave things understated. You will also have to decide whether our narrator, Alice, is credible for the time period, or if she is a 21st century feminist in 17th century drag. For the record, I think Underwood wanted to have her both ways, hence I was willing to suspend disbelief in passages I found ahistorical.

The Witchfinder's Sister is a chilling tale that most readers will rip through. We should remember, though, that Matthew Hopkins was a real person and that his The Discovery of Witches was widely consulted as a go-to guide for more than a century. Salem loomed in the future, but European witch trials continued into the 19th century. England had a case of witch swimming as late as 1863, even though it repealed its witchcraft laws 127 years earlier. Underwood's novel ultimately made me think upon how easily hysteria forms and how hard it is to vanquish. Maybe the 17th century lurks closer than we might imagine.

Rob Weir

Wow, what a read. I was engrossed from the start! If you like historical fiction, this is a great one.
Set during Europe's witch trails around 1645.. Who knew? Europe had witch trials too?! This story
follows Alice after her husband's death. She seeks refuge with her brother Matthew Hopkins in the
small town where they grew up. She discovers that Matthew is an investigator into possible witches..
Torn between her family and her disgust for his profession.. as well as the reliance women had on the
men in their lives.. Alice becomes an unwilling observer and participant.

This book covers an interesting historical event that most Americans are unfamiliar with. We always
think of the Salem witch trials.. hundreds of women were executed in Europe before Salem. Throughout
the book the reader really identifies with Alice. She's stuck in this situation that she abhors, but Matthew
has such control over her life, that there's nothing to be done.

Would recommend! 5 stars

We are England in 1645. The witchfinder is Matthew Hopkins, a man scarred and haunted by a painful accident at birth and who carries deeper scars within. The sister is Alice, childless and newly widowed, she must return to Manningtree, her family home, and seek refuge with her brother. Alice is disturbed by the difference in the town since she left just five years before. Now, there is distrust, suspicion and death.
Matthew is a hunter of witches, sanctioned by the laws and the men who look to scripture for validation. Now, no one is safe and Alice defies her brother and the whisperings of others to find the reason for his visciousness. But no one is safe from him, not even herself.
What makes this all the more soul wrenching is that Matthew Hopkins, witch finder, was a historical person and historically, these witch hunts were carried out before Salem. It’s our knowing the future that makes this richly historical story the scariest.

What a cool book! Anything involving witch hunts and witch trials is interesting to me, and this was well written and engaging.

This book was all right. The topic was interesting, but the story lagged in places. It's not a book I would read again.

This read very slow for me. There were times when I really wanted to put the book down. And I want to kick myself for feeling like that because this was a horrible event in history. I should feel bad for thinking this. However, this is how I felt.

The story did pick up some and while it was grueling to carry on, I was glad that I did. The finish was thoroughly an eye opening for me into that horrible event I referred to in the paragraph above. It was hideous what those people did. The tests and trials were enough that anyone would give up and say "yes, I'm a witch, kill me now".

Back to the book though, the first half is L-O-N-G and S-L-O-W. I think the ending was so horrendous for this sister. However, was the first half worth the ending? I'm torn on that question. I was glad when I got through the slower part I know that for sure.

Thanks to Random House/Ballantine for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest unbiased review.

I received this book for free through NetGalley.

I am a huge fan of historical witchy fiction, and this book was mostly superb. Told by Alice, whose brother Matthew hunts, persecutes, and helps to hang women accused of witchcraft, the story is disturbing and compelling, despite the oft times archaic language. My only criticism is the lack of emotion I felt from Alice. Throughout her tale, she suffers many tragedies and losses, but I just didn't really feel much. While she lived with Matthew and he forced her to accompany him on his "travels", she thought about leaving but never really tried. I do realize how women were not independent like we are today, that Alice was at the mercy of her brother's generosity, but I still believe, had I been put in those disgusting situations, I'd have tried my hardest to run away from all of that. Of course, that's my story, and not Alice's. The very best of the book, is the final sentence. I am hopeful for a sequel. A really great read.

The premise sounded promising...17th century England, sister Alice returns home to live with brother Matthew when her husband dies in London, and finds her brother to be a nutcase when it comes to the occult. However, I found this book to be a bit of a drag. It took until half way through to really get into some plot development, as the author dragged the story along, plodding through the background on the family dynamics, the mystery of the brother's facial burns and their old servant, the complexities of their mother's mental and physical illnesses, the sister's hard life and marriage in London, etc. etc. etc. And quite frankly, I was less than interested in these details as little tension was developed, nor any characters I could sincerely love or hate. The second half was better, as the brother and sister take the 'show on the road' and ride about the small English villages testing young women for their skills at witchcraft. Some emotional angst is brought in as the sister struggles with her own morality as she becomes complicit in the trials and deaths of these women. The author plays with the idea of evil entities taking actual physical form, but does not firmly commit which is disconcerting to the reader. Is it fantasy? Is the evil read? Or is the evil within humanity? I would have liked more answers. Ultimately, I turned pages quickly in the end just to finish it, not because I was enamored.

The Witchfinder's Sister is the debut novel by Beth Underdown. Her first novel. I need to make sure that is stated up front because it is an absolutely amazing read. I was totally drawn into Alice's story. The book opens with Alice being kept prisoner in a locked room under orders of her brother Matthew Hopkin's, the infamous witchfinder of English history. As the book circles back and tells the story of Alice and her family, I could not help but fear for her safety. Each chapter increased the dread for what would happen to her.

The book takes place during the English Civil War. The story begins in the spring of 1645 and ends in the summer of 1648. Alice is witness to her brother's hunt for witches and his methods for identifying them. This is the mindset, the philosophy, that gave birth to America's own witch hunts. It is truly frightening on several levels. Any woman who was different, perhaps mentally ill or independent or quarrelsome with her neighbors was fair game for being accused. Once accused there was no way to prove one's innocence, only one's guilt. The author does a fantastic job of illustrating these details without losing the reader's interest.

Although this period of English history is not very familiar to me, I am now very interested in learning more of it. Did this witch paranoia come from the chaos of the civil war or from the religious philosophy of those fighting the crown? How could a woman defend herself if accused? Was there any chance for being acquitted at all? Alice is a fantastic guide through this nightmare world. She is a reliable narrator who is horrified by what she witnesses but finds herself powerless to help any of the accused, even to help herself.

I highly recommend Beth Underdown's debut novel The Witchfinder's Sister. It is a compelling, tense but ultimately enjoyable read.

[Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley for review purposes.]

This was another snoozefest. Next to nothing seemed to happen until very late in the book, when Matthew, the main character's brother and the title witchfinder, finally got to the meat of his searching. At that point he took Alice with him, and abused and degraded her, treating her like a prisoner, like one of the witches. She obviously should have left months before (or not returned at all). By this point there was no escape.

But for all of Alice's suffering at the hands of her brother, it came after too much apathy. "He couldn't possibly believe these women are witches." "They couldn't possibly be found guilty." "The courts would never hang them for this. They're always just sent home after some jail time." "I'm watching him do these terrible things, but he couldn't possibly really be like this." She made so many excuses that by the time shit got real, it was too late. And that is my main problem. Not one person, not even Alice, did a damn thing to stop Matthew. Bridget wanted Alice to do something, but Alice just couldn't believe that her precious little brother was capable of murdering 106 women by accusing them of being witches. (Obviously he was, or he wouldn't have been riding around the countryside collecting them for the jail.)

I was super bored until I got to about 78%. By then it was too late to back out, I might as well finish. The end wasn't even satisfying, even though it was what I was hoping would happen. Probably because despite what happened to Matthew at the end, he still killed 106 women and everyone in the freaking country helped him along gleefully.

I guess this wasn't a bad book. It was written well, but the character of Alice was *snore* and Mary Phillips was just pure evil, and everyone else around them was too afraid to say or do anything, or they were so happy to see those whore witches hang. I couldn't really feel much of anything for anyone. The story moved too slowly, and for some reason, the sense of place didn't feel right.

Actual rating: 3,5

It has been 15 days since I read The Witchfinder’s Sister, and I still don’t know what to think about it.
That happens rarely to me, almost never.
I have to warn you that my review will probably be all over the place because I am still finding the words to express my thoughts, but there is one thing I can say for sure: The Witchfinder’s Sister left me confused.

The story follows Alice Hopkins who returns to her childhood town to live with her brother Matthew, after a tragic death of her husband.
Since she saw him last time, Matthew changed.
He gained a lot of respect and hangs out with powerful men.
His job is to “expose” witches, put them on trial and punish them if they’re found guilty.

First thing that has to be stress out is that Matthew’s character is based on real person who lived in 17th century in England, and who is responsible for many of lives lost because women were accused of practicing witchcraft.
Despite that, this novel is piece of fiction.

It is told in first person, from Alice’s point of view.
I can’t say if the language in this book is authentic to the one that was in use in 1645, but it sounds a bit different from today’s modern English, but at the same time it reads pretty quickly.

The first third of the book was excellent.
The author really managed to describe the cold atmosphere that I imagine was present in that time.
I also liked how it wasn’t clear if the paranormal aspect was really present in the plot, or was it just in the minds of people that live in this book.
There was a point where I had to stop reading because I was too scared (and it was bedtime, so I didn’t want to have a sleepless night(I feel obligated to also tell you that the “problem” was in my head and the book isn’t as scarry as I was afraid it would be)).

The second half of the book was boring, which is a shame.
There were so many descriptions and so little conversations.
I wish we got to see more scenes from trials, but instead we got scenes with Alice hanging out with accused woman.
However, parts where she’s discovering mysery around her brother were really interesting.

I still don’t know what to think about the ending part related to Matthew.
It was somewhat unusual, that is for sure!

The end was good. I really, really liked the last sentence.

Overall, I liked the story in general, but I think it could have been told in more interesting way then it was.
It had potential to be even better.

Still, I think fans of historical fiction would appreciate this story so I recommend it to them, as well as to everyone else who’d like to read more about real witch hunt that happened in England during 17th century.

I had really high hopes for this one but around 40% mark I put it down and couldn't finish it. The story just fell flat for me and nothing major was going on. I may give this another go sometime in the future though.

The Witchfinder's Sister takes place in the Essex Town Manningtree, England during the 1640's where young Alice returns home after the tragic death of her husband to find that her brother, Matthew has become a prominent but mostly feared man in the community. Trying to settle in and forget the painful memories of her husband, Alice discovers that her brother is a Witchfinder, a man who seeks out persons accused of practicing Witchcraft to torture and ultimately force a confession. Upon learning of her brother's hand in these deeds Alice seeks to find a way out of her brother's grip but unwillingly witnesses what is happening to her friends and loved ones. This was a chilling read for me at times, the author did a great job of setting the atmosphere and tone of this book where one person's suspicions and accusations against their neighbor usually led to persecution and death. A suspenseful and gripping page turner. Recommended. Thank you Netgalley for this ARC copy. (less)