The Mandrake Broom

The Mandrake Broom – called a “well-researched, complex, and exciting historical novel” – dramatizes the valiant efforts of a group of women determined to save medical knowledge during the witch-burning times in Europe 1465-1540 and answers the question: what would have happened if the wicca had fought back?

Charged with the task of carrying the foremost medical volume of the time – the Trotula – a young Salernita struggles through her dangerous journey while trusting plants more than people. Harbored and helped by feral herbalists, a giant bowman, scribes and traders, she years to recraft medical science with Paracelsus, the father of modern surgery.

In The Mandrake Broom, you’ll meet:
•Luccia Alimenti, daughter of a medical professor at the University of Salerno, Italy, first of its kind and last to close its doors to women;
•Fiona, her Irish godmother who tries to protect her and forge a family while struggling with epilesy and grief.
•Marelle, a hunter and co-conspirator as they are pushed to the brink and take up arms for revenge.
•Theo Paracelsus, a brilliant eunuch and addict who helps Luccia forge a bridge between the new and old medicines.

The Mandrake Broom involves the tension between visibility and invisibility, between internal strength and external powerlessness, and the continually fluid interplay of those factors, while it takes the reader through persecution and Plague, love and joy, and the struggle for knowledge and unity.

The Historical Novel Review says that “historical events…are elegantly woven into the plot. The well-rounded characters, constant action, and captivating subject matter unite [in] Wells’ vivid writing…. Reminiscent of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon series, Jess Wells’ third novel belongs on everyone’s reading list.”