The Mourning Necklace

‘Kate Foster can pluck a dark story from the depths of history and bring it to vivid life before your eyes . . . A strong contender for my book of the year‘ - Janice Hallett, bestselling author of The Appeal Inspired by an infamous real-life case, The Mourning Necklace is the unforgettable new 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? ‘Kate excels at bringing the forgotten women of history back to life and giving them the attention they deserve‘ - Claire Evans, author of The Fourteenth Letter ‘Captivating . . . Scratch beneath the surface of a Kate Foster novel and all of life is there in the most elegant prose‘ - Marion Todd, author of the bestselling DI Clare Mackay series ‘Brilliant . . . [Kate Foster is] the new Hilary Mantel‘ - Tina Baker, author of What We Did In The Storm