BookLemur.com

Debut historical fiction author, Annelisa, abandoned the magical realism series she’d been sporadically writing over the last decade when she won an online bid for a section of a seventeenth century book of trials. All she wanted was to hold some three-hundred-year-old pages in her hand, but what she got was an unexpected passion to write the defendant’s story. Within five minutes of reading, she fell for the bold and sassy defendant, Elizabeth Cellier. The more Annelisa researched this extraordinary midwife, the more she wanted to tell her story; she wanted the world to know the same inspiration she felt. ‘The Popish Midwife’ is the exciting and gripping result of years of research and writing. Even better, Elizabeth’s story has set Annelisa on course to write the ‘Seventeenth Century Midwives’ series - stories of other outstanding ‘ordinary’ women that caught her imagination during her research.

In seventeenth-century London, thirteen years after the plague and twelve years after the Great Fire, the restoration of King Charles II has dulled the memory of Cromwell's puritan rule, yet fear and suspicion are rife. Religious turmoil is rarely far from tipping the scales into hysteria. Elizabeth Cellier, a bold and outspoken midwife, regularly visits Newgate Prison to distribute alms to victims of religious persecution. There she falls in with the charming Captain Willoughby, a debtor, whom she enlists to gather information about crimes against prisoners, so she might involve herself in petitioning the king in their name. ‘’Tis a plot, Madam, of the direst sort. ’ With these whispered words Willoughby draws Elizabeth unwittingly into the infamous Popish Plot and soon not even the fearful warnings of her husband, Pierre, can loosen her bond with it. This is the incredible true story of one woman ahead of her time and her fight against prejudice and injustice.

Kindle Price: $7.99

Category: Literature & Fiction; History