‘A gripping novel . Gorgeous and chilling’ – Madeline Miller, author of Circe

BBC Radio 2 Reserve Club Pick and choose 2020

Inspired by the true events from the Vardø storm of 1617, The Mercies is definitely a story about how exactly suspicion can easily twist its way through a community, and a appreciate that may demonstrate as dangerous as it is powerful.

On Christmas Eve, 1617, the sea around the remote control Norwegian island of Vardø is thrown into a reckless storm. As Maren Magnusdatter watches, forty fishermen, including her father and about The Mercies sibling, are lost towards the waves – the menfolk of Vardø destroyed immediately.

Vardø is currently a place of women.

Eighteen months later, a sinister determine comes. Summoned from Scotland to manage a place at the edge of the civilized world, Absalom Cornet knows what he needs to do to bring the ladies of Vardø to heel. With him travels his youthful wife, Ursa. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa discovers something she has never noticed before: independent females. But Absalom views only a place flooded with an awful bad, one he must main out at all costs . . .