The Mourning Necklace
29 May 2025Synopsis
'Kate Foster is an exceptional writer and masterful storyteller' – Janice Hallett, bestselling author of The Appeal
Inspired by an infamous real-life case, The Mourning Necklace is an unforgettable 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-bruise like a necklace.
1724. In a tavern just outside Edinburgh, Maggie Dickson’s family drown their sorrows, mourning her death yet relieved she is gone. Shame haunts them. Hanged for the murder of her newborn child, 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 this one: will they hang her twice?
Praise for Kate Foster:
'Exceptional – a tense, thrilling investigation, with a decidedly feminist slant' – Daily Mail on The Maiden
'Riveting . . . the tension persists until the last page’ – The Times on The Maiden
'Enthralling, compelling and at times chilling . . . An utterly timely tale' – D. V. Bishop, prize-winning author of Ritual of Fire, on The King's Witches
Details
29 May 2025
9781035052059Reviews
The Maiden is a masterpiece. A thrilling historical murder tale but so much more. Vivid, evocative and full of humanityJanice Hallett, bestselling author of The Appeal, on The Maiden
Riveting . . . The tension persists until the last pageThe Times on The Maiden
Kate Foster expands the slender facts of the case into something exceptional - a tense, thrilling investigation, with a decidedly feminist slant - Daily Mail on The Maiden
Threat hangs over every page like the awaiting guillotine, but the women in this book gleam sharper. Witty, gritty and full of heart, their voices rise through the brutality and hardship of seventeenth-century Edinburgh, battling to be heardCari Thomas, bestselling author of Threadneedle
