The Familiars: The dark, captivating Sunday Times bestseller and original break-out witch-lit novel

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I loved this book!! This is the style of Gothic mystery that I first fell in love with. This debut author has done an outstanding job of creating a heavily laden atmosphere of suspense, casting doubts in all directions and pitting our heroine against those she should be able to trust, against society, and against time. Fleetwood Shuttleworth is once more with child, hoping this time she will be able to give her husband, Richard, the heir he is so desirous of. But, when she stumbles across a letter, written to her husband from a physician, warning him that if Fleetwood should once more find herself in childbed, she would not survive. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It left me feeling enthralled with parts and spellbound by others * Whisperingstories * It was interesting to observe the incredibly privileged life that Fleetwood lived, especially in comparison to Alice, but for all that privilege she was still a woman, no real rights, almost a kind of ornament to decorate their home, Gawthorpe Hall. She is pregnant for the fourth time, and if she doesn't manage to provide a living child she is essentially useless. I had a great deal of sympathy for her. I don't think I've ever been so invested in a pregnancy before, real or fictional. The Familiars is as rich in content as its cover is in beauty. Historical accuracy balanced with imagination. Exposition never weighing the book down. Tremendous characterisation and absorbing storytelling combined with appreciative nods to Du Maurier's Rebecca * Lizzy's Literary Life *

Once more, Aldwyn encounters his uncle, but puts an end to him this time. They continue to the room where Paksahara waits, resulting in a deadly battle. In the midst, Gilbert attempts to summon fire and successfully completes a spell, showing the improvement of his magic. Paksahara takes advantage of this distraction to disguise herself as Gilbert.

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Are you familiar with familiars? Yes, I know. I’m part Scottish so these things are embedded into my DNA but for many, I now realize, they are not. A familiar is an animal that is close to a witch who does certain things for the witch. They can act as protectors, spies, a type of servant or, most often, a close companion. If you see one, you most often will see the other because they rarely are separated. This is a brilliant debut, pacy and inventive, from a terrifically talented new voice * Daily Telegraph *

I enjoyed this just as much as I'd been hoping I would. Fleetwood was a character I liked immediately, and Alice was a fascinating figure. I wasn't sure going in if this was about witches or not, as in literal magic. I'd say it's really more about the perception of witchcraft and how easy it was to accuse people, especially women, of practicing it. The thought of people being condemned to death over rumour is a difficult one. Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson (2010-09-24). " 'The Familiars' movie gets a director". TheFamiliars.com . Retrieved 2010-10-04. An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale. Thank you to Tracy at Compulsive Readers Tours and Zaffre Books for this copy which I reviewed honestly and voluntarily. The events described in the Familiars by Stacey Halls take place in the year 1612. Fleetwood is 17 years old and lives a lonely existence with her husband (of 4 years!) in a gloomy, isolated mansion in northern England. She’s pregnant but has previously had problems with miscarriages. She’s anxious to give birth successfully as Richard, her husband is desperate for an heir.It’s well developed, informative, but still frustrating with the parts show how the ignorance affect people’s minds and turned them into mentally blind. Her face was long and narrow, her eyes large, their color unusual even from a distance: a warm gold, like new coins. There was something fiercely intelligent, almost masculine, in her gaze, and though she was crouched down and I standing, for a moment I felt afraid, as though I was the one who had been discovered. The Familiars is a historical novel set in the era when people who were a little different were accused of being witches and killed, not only in the UK but across the world too. One of the most famous and best-recorded witch trials in the UK was in Pendle, Lancashire, now dubbed the home of the ‘Pendle Witches’, where twelve people went on trial and ten found guilty.