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The most exceptional novels are those that whisk you away from everything around you. They take you out of your routine, your surroundings, your very existence, and spirit you off to a time and place of the author’s choosing, A world is created of words on paper or digits on screen that become flesh and blood, sight and sound, joy and sadness, and so much more. Janopaul has created such a world in her novel, The Witch’s Get.
The land is Scotland. The time is past. A past when fear and superstition reigned. Medicine and surgery were elemental at best and only available to the wealthy and landed gentry. Peasants who scratched out an existence on tiny parcels of earth had to fend for themselves when accident, sickness, and disease came calling. Midwives and healers brought their own brand of ministrations to those in need. They employed cures, remedies, and relief, often devised from plants, herbs, and other natural substances. But these good Samaritans often found themselves feared and loathed by the very villagers they tried to help. The slightest malady or mishap could quickly turn ugly when malcontents needed a scapegoat to blame for any number of ills befalling them. In fearful, ignorant minds, healers could be seen as witches in the blink of any eye.
Janopaul’s tale comes from the mouth of Mancy, a healer suspected of being a witch. From the very beginning she tells you she’s a serial liar, so you have to take what she says with an appropriate degree of skepticism. However, she’s such a skillful storyteller that you’re immediately caught up in her saga of a frightening knock on the door in the dead of night, a wounded man dumped in her cottage, and the fight to save his life without losing her heart to him and perhaps her head to others. Janopaul uses an economy of words and stays true to her pretender’s voice. Both her content and her style will keep you firmly ensconced in a world far different from your own. And after all, isn’t that why you read novels in the first place?
RECOMMENDED by the US Review