The Dance Tree
The BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick
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4,0 • 1 note
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- 8,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
The gripping historical novel from Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mercies. The perfect book club read, as seen on BBC Two's Between the Covers.
‘Exceptionally brilliant. Sensual, compelling’ – Marian Keyes, author of Again, Rachel
Set in an era of superstition and hysteria, and inspired by the true events of a doomed summer, The Dance Tree is an impassioned story of family secrets, forbidden love, and women pushed to the edge . . .
Strasbourg, 1518. Lisbet is pregnant, but frightened she will lose the child, when the arrival of a stranger upends her world, and promises to change her understanding of love forever.
Ida’s life seems simple – she is married, her family fully formed – but a buried secret threatens to destroy her peaceful existence.
Nethe has just returned from years in exile, punishment for a crime no one will name.
As a mysterious dance plague takes hold of the city, all three women become entangled in a web of deceit and clandestine passion that has them dancing to a dangerous tune.
‘Intriguing, haunting, beautiful’ – Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne
'I absolutely loved this book' – Elodie Harper, author of The Wolf Den
‘Extraordinary, enthralling’ – Sunday Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hargrave's overwrought latest (after The Mercies) takes place in the sweltering European summer of 1518, when a slew of women danced in the central square of Strasbourg for months. The craze begins with Lisbet, a beekeeper who is determined to see her latest pregnancy through after a series of miscarriages. Her husband, Henne, leaves home for Heidelberg to keep their bees from being confiscated by the local monastery, just as Lisbet's sister-in-law, Nethe, returns after seven years at a secluded abbey in the mountains, penance for an unnamed sin. Only Lisbet's friend Ida, married to a cruel and vengeful man, and Nethe know about Lisbet's dance tree, deep in the forest, where ribbons flutter for each of the children she has lost. Secrets are revealed, and things spiral dangerously out of control for Lisbet after an increasing number of women take to dancing themselves into oblivion in the city, prompting two musicians to attempt to cast the devil out of them with their music. Sometimes Hargrave's prose soars, but more often its excessive floridity undercuts the story's drama. Readers will have a hard time finding their way into this one.
