Review: Tidelands

Tidelands by Philippa Gregory
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars

This is my third try to read Philippa Gregory and though I had a genuine interest in the period (Commonwealth/Cromwell era England) and the rigid gender expectations for women, I felt frustrated by the men in the story who felt too one dimensional.

Goodwife (Goody) Alinor Reekie is a woman abandoned by her husband, struggling to raise her children in a era in which clever women are presumed to be witches. Alinor is a gifted midwife and practitioner of herbal medicine. Her beautiful daughter Alys is following in her mother's footsteps, while her son Rob mourns the disappearance of his father, Zachary. Alinor is despised by Goody Miller, who manages to spread enough rumors about Alinor to lead to her being tried as a witch. Alinor falls in love with James, who is posing as a tutor and secretly aiding the campaign of King Charles to retake the throne. Alinor's trial as a witch is inevitable and we spend the entire book building toward that inevitability. Gregory managed to make me dislike every male character other than Rob, who is a child. I was, however rooting for Alinor and Alys all the long day.

I'm sure that there are many who will find this a perfectly suitable novel of historical fiction, but it just wasn't my fare.

I received a Digital Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

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