“Prologue. Altha. 1619. Ten days they’d held me there. Ten days, with only the stink of my own flesh for company. Not even a rat graced me with its presence. There was nothing to attract it; they had brought me no food. Only ale.”
Those are the opening lines to Emilia Hart’s novel Weyward. The novel has three main characters, all women of the same family - just different generations.
Altha has been accused of being a witch and causing the death of a local farmer. When the story begins, she is about to stand trial. When she was a child, her mother taught her how to use the natural world to cure ills. In 1942, sixteen-year-old Violet lives with her father and brother. She’s not allowed to leave her home and, because of her strange obsession and connection to wildlife, not allowed outside. She’s not sure how her mother died. In 2019, Kate is married to an abusive man and, as the story opens when she realizes she is pregnant, flees London to protect both herself and her unborn child. She hides out in Weyward cottage in an overgrown forest that she inherited from her great aunt Violet.
All three women have strong connections to insects and crows. As the jacket says, “Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Weyward is an astonishing debut, and an enthralling novel of female resilience.”
If you’re looking for a novel depicting how strength of character is passed from one generation to another, then you must read Weyward by Emilia Hart.
