Boon's Bookcase

 The Mourning Necklace

by

Kate Foster

Inspired by an infamous real-life case, The Mourning Necklace is the unforgettable original feminist historical novel from the Women’s Prize-longlisted author of The Maiden, Kate Foster.

They said I would swing for the crime and I did . . . I wear the rope-mark like a mourning necklace.

1724. In a tavern just outside Edinburgh, the family of Maggie Dickson – hanged for the murder of her newborn child – drown their sorrows, mourning her death yet relieved she is gone. Shame haunts them; passers-by avert their eyes from her cheap coffin on its rickety cart.

But as her family pray her soul rests in peace, a figure appears at the door.

It is Maggie. She is alive.

Bruised and dazed, Maggie has little time for her family’s questions. All that matters to her is answering one: will they hang her twice?

REVIEW

In 1724 Maggie Dickson leaves her family home in Edinburgh with the intention of starting a new life in London after her husband disappears, supposedly by a press gang. 

Maggie's father is a drunk and very abusive. Her mother is weak and also scared of her husband, whilst her sister Joan is manipulative and jealous of Maggie and her recent marriage and will do anything she can to undermine her. 

Maggie gets to a boarding house in Kelso where the landlady takes her under her wing to help out with the chores. Only after a few weeks does Maggie realise that she is with child and tries to hide it for as long as she can. 

Maggie panics when she goes into labour and is adamant she doesn't want the baby, but when her daughter is born very early and doesn't survive for very long, Maggie puts her in a basket and takes her to be buried by the river bank. 

When the baby is discovered and Maggie is found out, she is accused of concealing a pregnancy and charged with murder, the punishment of which is death by hanging.

The day of her execution comes and she is hung, but she does not die and she enters the pub where her family are mourning her death, only for them all to be amazed that she is still alive!

This is a true story and one that I found fascinating and read it in only a few days. I have now bought this authors other books as I thoroughly enjoyed this one and would definitely recommend.