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Book Reviewed by:A sweeping historical adventure set during one of the most turbulent periods of British history--featuring a heroine you'll never forget...
Dorset, 1642.
When bloody civil war breaks out between the king and Parliament, families and communities across England are riven by different allegiances.
A rare few choose neutrality.
One such is Jayne Swift, a Dorset physician from a Royalist family, who offers her services to both sides in the conflict. Through her dedication to treating the sick and wounded, regardless of belief, Jayne becomes a witness to the brutality of war and the devastation it wreaks.
Yet her recurring companion at every event is a man she should despise because he embraces civil war as the means to an end. She knows him as William Harrier, but is ignorant about every other aspect of his life. His past is a mystery and his future uncertain.
The Swift and the Harrier is a sweeping tale of adventure and loss, sacrifice and love, with a unique and unforgettable heroine at its heart.
1642
The English Civil War begins on 22 August when
King Charles raises his standard at Nottingham.
Three days earlier, a Catholic priest is executed
in Dorset for treason.
ONE
DORCHESTER, DORSET, 19 AUGUST 1642
As the hour for the priests' execution approached, the press of people heading for Gallows Hill grew denser and more impatient. Jayne Swift had expected crowds, but not such a multitude as this. It seemed every Puritan in Dorset had come to gloat at the spectacle of Catholics being hanged, drawn, and quartered, because there wasn't a road or street in Dorchester that wasn't thronged with hard-faced men and women, their eyes aglitter in anticipation of papist blood being spilt.
Jayne's only means of making headway against the tide was to stay close to the fronts of houses and try to move forward each time there was a gap, but she was attracting unwelcome attention by doing so. She made the decision to retreat into a doorway and wait for the crush to subside after a man rounded ...
Walters presents her readers with many examples of brave women who, in their own ways, fight in the war. The male character whose bravery Walters focuses on the most is William Harrier, who of course forms the latter half of the titular duo with Jayne. Though their interactions seem too few and infrequent to generate the kind of relationship that develops between them by the end of the novel, the intensity of their similarities (their shared desire for independence, change and equality) certainly forms a strong basis for romantic attachment. However, I would not categorize The Swift and the Harrier as a romance. Walters really prioritizes the individual journeys of her characters — not just those of Jayne and William, but of their families and friends — and I found this to be a refreshing departure from the popular historical romance currently on the market...continued
Full Review
(634 words)
(Reviewed by Maria Katsulos).
S. W. Perry, bestselling author of the Jackdaw Mysteries
I loved every moment of this brilliantly evocative saga of struggle, love, and danger set against the horrors of civil war.
For a novel that focuses on a physician during an incredibly bloody war, The Swift and the Harrier by Minette Walters is generally not too explicit in describing the treatment of wounds. The passage below is an exception; when main character Jayne's brother suffers a pike wound to the thigh that soon becomes infected, her mentor suggests what we now call larval therapy: the introduction of maggots to gangrenous wounds. While certainly gross enough to disgust most modern readers — and seemingly very far removed from our own times — larval therapy, which has existed in some form or another since antiquity (and still does), is a fascinating phenomenon and indicative in the above passage of a change sweeping European medicine in ...
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