The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

 

From Goodreads

In Strasbourg, in the boiling hot summer of 1518, a plague strikes the women of the city. First it is just one – a lone figure, dancing in the main square – but she is joined by more and more and the city authorities declare an emergency. Musicians will be brought in. The devil will be danced out of these women.

Just beyond the city’s limits, pregnant Lisbet lives with her mother-in-law and husband, tending the bees that are their livelihood. Her best friend Ida visits regularly and Lisbet is so looking forward to sharing life and motherhood with her. And then, just as the first woman begins to dance in the city, Lisbet’s sister-in-law Nethe returns from six years’ penance in the mountains for an unknown crime. No one – not even Ida – will tell Lisbet what Nethe did all those years ago, and Nethe herself will not speak a word about it.

It is the beginning of a few weeks that will change everything for Lisbet – her understanding of what it is to love and be loved, and her determination to survive at all costs for the baby she is carrying. Lisbet and Nethe and Ida soon find themselves pushing at the boundaries of their existence – but they’re dancing to a dangerous tune . . .

My thoughts

This is another book that I am not sure how I came across it.  Sometimes, books found this way turn out to be treasures to read and sometimes they don't!  Would you like to know which way this book went for me or not?

This is not an easy book to review at all.  Set in the early 1600's this book is loosely based on a time when women were struck down by a plague that caused them to dance.  Not knowing the cause of this, people assumed that they had been taken over by the Devil.  There is some mention in the story of St Vitus, which made me think of the childhood illness known as St Vitus's dance whether this historical issue gave rise to the name at all I don't know.  

Telling the story of Lisbet, her family and friends, how they cope with this new plague that is affecting the female of the sex.  The story is at times magical, historical and is in some ways whimsical in how it relates the story and all that happens to us.  As I was reading it I found myself lost in the story and not always knowing what was happening, it immersed me in it and now I have finished it I can escape from it.