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nigellicus's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Rather different, more intense and horrifying instalment in the series as Elizabeth is accused of witchcraft by her wretched husband and the scheming Lord Spymie and an even schemier witchfinder. It's brutal, all the more so for Carey's enforced dithering while she endures torments as he tries to marshall forces to rescue her and come up with a plan that won't see them both hung, but also behaving quite unheroically - Finney has never been starry-eyed about the nature of her main protagonist, though there's no doubt he is doing his best for his one true love. There is a mystery element there - what are Spymie and the witchfinder's ulterior motives for this? But it's mostly an agonisingly suspenseful thriller following Elizabeth's ordeal and the struggles of various allies to come to her aid. The pov is divided out amongst quite a few characters, something I've always liked about these books since Finney's gifts for characterisation are formidable. Still a severely under-rated series, Finney's determination to keep it going is laudable.
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