Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - The Maiden

Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

cathy_alice's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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happyknitter2020's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Read as part of the Women's Prize Longlist 2024.
A fictional perspective of true historical event of a woman being killed for murdering her Uncle. The author gently placed the tracing paper of today's understanding of intra familial abuse & a coersive controlling & abuse male to the experience from over 340 years ago in 1679.

Wouldn't have picked this up due to the cover design, but glad the longlist brouht this to my attention, as helped me to reflect on previous generations of womens experiences.

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kirstym25's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Maiden is a work of historical fiction, one inspired by a real life event - the arrest, trial and eventual execution of Lady Christian Nimmo for the murder of her lover (and uncle by marriage), Lord James Forrester in Scotland in 1679. The Maiden of the title refers not to Lady Christian but to the guillotine type device used for her execution. Foster doesn’t seek to excuse the murder. Nor does she portray Nimmo as innocent, the victim of mistaken identity or a miscarriage of justice. Rather she uses her 21st century knowledge and sensibilities to explain why her character (and she makes it clear that the woman in her book is a fictional character and is not meant to represent the actual historical Lady Christian) acted the way she did. And I found her imaginings to be plausible and convincing. Lord James was a thoroughly despicable character who richly deserved some type of justice, a public shaming by the Kirk at the very least. Sadly his wealth and status protected him from that. Foster also showed the way other’s contributed to the situation Christian found herself in and considered times when the outcome might have been changed. However, I appreciated the fact that she didn’t shy away from Christian not being an innocent party, one who acted badly, had flaws, exerted agency and while provoked did not need to kill her lover. Gender, money, power, status and sexuality all come into play, sometimes in unexpected ways. Overall a solid, well-written story that I’m glad the Women’s Prize put on my radar.

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