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The Witch & Her Soul
At her dying husband’s bedside, Jane’s extraordinary diary is born. Confessional, raw, evocative, her soul-deep writings reveal her world, her forbidden beliefs and desires.
“Jane Southworth. Bastard Daughter of Sir Richard Shireburn, great knight of the realm. Outspoken wife of nobleman John Southworth of Samlesbury Hall. Friend of Alice Nutter, farmer, humanitarian & alleged witch of Pendle.”
Around her, in a time of treachery, suspicion and vicious persecution, begins the frenzied pursuit of innocents accused of Witchcraft, culminating in a terrible trial that is to pull Jane right into its heart.
“Jane Southworth. Bastard Daughter of Sir Richard Shireburn, great knight of the realm. Outspoken wife of nobleman John Southworth of Samlesbury Hall. Friend of Alice Nutter, farmer, humanitarian & alleged witch of Pendle.”
Around her, in a time of treachery, suspicion and vicious persecution, begins the frenzied pursuit of innocents accused of Witchcraft, culminating in a terrible trial that is to pull Jane right into its heart.
349 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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108 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 13, 2020
The Witch and Her Soul is a standalone story about one woman’s experiences during a time of religious unrest and superstition set during the Pendle Witch Trials. Overall, it seems to be fairly well-written but there are a few problems.
At times, bits were unclear. This could be a deliberate ploy by the author in order to represent the jumbled thought processes of the narrator and protagonist but it can become confusing for the reader.
Another element that has the potential to confuse readers is the naming of characters. There are several characters that share the same first name; several nicknames or variants of names are applied to just one character; and sometimes, many new (minor) characters are introduced at once. This creates confusion because the reader is not immediately sure which character is being alluded to.
I found that the description of the narrator’s family was a bit too long and a convoluted way of saying . On the other hand, I personally felt that there was not enough detail about the religious order known as the Family of Love. The Family of Love has quite an integral part of the story and should have been explained further.
The book also required a bit of editing. There is an issue with paragraph and sentence lengths. For paragraphs, there are some that are perhaps too short and could be combined with the other paragraphs. Some of the sentences are just fragments, missing vital elements, and could do with being rewritten in order to make more sense while others have many clauses.
All in all, could do better.
At times, bits were unclear. This could be a deliberate ploy by the author in order to represent the jumbled thought processes of the narrator and protagonist but it can become confusing for the reader.
Another element that has the potential to confuse readers is the naming of characters. There are several characters that share the same first name; several nicknames or variants of names are applied to just one character; and sometimes, many new (minor) characters are introduced at once. This creates confusion because the reader is not immediately sure which character is being alluded to.
I found that the description of the narrator’s family was a bit too long and a convoluted way of saying . On the other hand, I personally felt that there was not enough detail about the religious order known as the Family of Love. The Family of Love has quite an integral part of the story and should have been explained further.
The book also required a bit of editing. There is an issue with paragraph and sentence lengths. For paragraphs, there are some that are perhaps too short and could be combined with the other paragraphs. Some of the sentences are just fragments, missing vital elements, and could do with being rewritten in order to make more sense while others have many clauses.
All in all, could do better.
November 17, 2012
Based on the trial of the Samlesbury witches, which collapsed in Lancaster during the same court session where, in 1612, the Pendle witches were condemned to death. Using Jane Southworth as her main character, author Christine Middleton retraces the Lancashire gentry's family feuds and religious tensions at the turn of the 17th century. She also brings Alice Nutter, the most enigmatic of the Pendle witches, into the narrative. It's fictionalised of course, with some contrivances - but for the most part, it's a well-crafted, beautifully written and highly compelling take on history. The only part that gave me pause was the chapters concerning the trial itself, which seemed a little rushed - but this could be that I've read so much about it already, whereas the earlier history was less familiar. All in all though, a fine read (and many times better than Jeanette Winterson's more publicised take on the subject.)
March 2, 2016
The Witch and Her Soul is set in and around the year 1612, the year of the trial of the Pendle witches in Lancaster. Middleton opens with her narrator, Jane Southworth, at her husband's death bed determined to write down the events of her not uneventful life up until that point. It begins awkwardly, Middleton stubbornly writes in a style that firmly places her readers in the past but at times lacks a little coherence, consistency and fluency. Or perhaps the style simple takes a bit of bedding in because it is also quickly apparent from the lack of media commentary on and in the covers, and from the fierce lack of concession to any of the hallmarks of modern day best-sellers that Middelton is writing this her way, without embellishments or dramatic narrative concessions. For once it's all about the content and the setting. That Jane is writing her memoirs just before the trials occur and they are then noted down almost as an afterthought in a second section written by her son as she dictates from her deathbed seems indicative of Middleton's aims. This is Jane Southworth's story, part fact part fiction, how she wants to tell it.
It does make for a sometimes slow, uninteresting tale. Seventeenth century life is drawn out in detail, in particular the thoughts and debates of the times in relation to religion, women and social structures. Middleton's two main interests are the very forward thinking Alice Nutter, an independent widow who has had great success on her isolated farm and created a strong community feeling among her employees through education and reading of provocative thinkers not yet accepted or even known in North West England at the time, and the historical context of the time, that being the persecution of Catholics and other growing religious groups like Nutter's Friends of Love (perhaps an early incarnation of the Quakers). The witches are firmly placed within this context and, while there are occasional moments of mysticism (fortune telling, lucky charms, curses) Middleton depicts each "witch" as who she believes them to be, whether it be free thinking woman, poor wretch, mad old lady, potential victim of rape or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The trials are shown to be political in nature, their witnesses paid and manipulated and the motives more of repression of those upsetting the status quo than any true fears for public safety.
At the heart of the story is Jane, an intelligent, ambitious and sometimes bawdy red-haired girl determined to write down her story with passion and verve. That she claims from Nutter, the woman who taught her to read and think critically, and who becomes the real tragedy of those dreadful trials. Jane too comes under threat, a victim of male guilt and lust, as she is accused of all manner of ridiculous crimes from an unlikely source (the one real narrative twist during the trials). She doesn't hide from her sexuality, writes about it with obvious pleasure at her husband's deathbed (from young love and romance to the burning lust Christopher awakens in her) and speaks openly about sexuality's role in wresting some control of her violent, passive-aggressive husband.
At times the language, that difficult task of reaching back through the centuries for a voice, a syntax and a vocabulary and putting it accurately and consistently to paper, of treading the fine lines of colloquialism, accent and dialect, of estimating and appropriating a character with a completely different education and linguistic background to the modern author herself, seems forced and clumsy, but that doesn't stop Jane from growing into a strong, memorable and reliable narrator. Indeed, both Jane and Alice Nutter as historical and fictional figures seem quite vital to the development of women's independence and education, much more so than the later more famous voices of the time, the characters of the Bronte's and Austen for example. On completion, despite a lacklustre ending (perhaps intentional given Jane's fading life and the increasingly more intrusive interruptions of her son), The Witch and Her Soul is a very good read, very honestly written and refreshingly independent of the world of popular literature today. 6
It does make for a sometimes slow, uninteresting tale. Seventeenth century life is drawn out in detail, in particular the thoughts and debates of the times in relation to religion, women and social structures. Middleton's two main interests are the very forward thinking Alice Nutter, an independent widow who has had great success on her isolated farm and created a strong community feeling among her employees through education and reading of provocative thinkers not yet accepted or even known in North West England at the time, and the historical context of the time, that being the persecution of Catholics and other growing religious groups like Nutter's Friends of Love (perhaps an early incarnation of the Quakers). The witches are firmly placed within this context and, while there are occasional moments of mysticism (fortune telling, lucky charms, curses) Middleton depicts each "witch" as who she believes them to be, whether it be free thinking woman, poor wretch, mad old lady, potential victim of rape or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The trials are shown to be political in nature, their witnesses paid and manipulated and the motives more of repression of those upsetting the status quo than any true fears for public safety.
At the heart of the story is Jane, an intelligent, ambitious and sometimes bawdy red-haired girl determined to write down her story with passion and verve. That she claims from Nutter, the woman who taught her to read and think critically, and who becomes the real tragedy of those dreadful trials. Jane too comes under threat, a victim of male guilt and lust, as she is accused of all manner of ridiculous crimes from an unlikely source (the one real narrative twist during the trials). She doesn't hide from her sexuality, writes about it with obvious pleasure at her husband's deathbed (from young love and romance to the burning lust Christopher awakens in her) and speaks openly about sexuality's role in wresting some control of her violent, passive-aggressive husband.
At times the language, that difficult task of reaching back through the centuries for a voice, a syntax and a vocabulary and putting it accurately and consistently to paper, of treading the fine lines of colloquialism, accent and dialect, of estimating and appropriating a character with a completely different education and linguistic background to the modern author herself, seems forced and clumsy, but that doesn't stop Jane from growing into a strong, memorable and reliable narrator. Indeed, both Jane and Alice Nutter as historical and fictional figures seem quite vital to the development of women's independence and education, much more so than the later more famous voices of the time, the characters of the Bronte's and Austen for example. On completion, despite a lacklustre ending (perhaps intentional given Jane's fading life and the increasingly more intrusive interruptions of her son), The Witch and Her Soul is a very good read, very honestly written and refreshingly independent of the world of popular literature today. 6
May 28, 2014
Brilliant book, so beautifully and accurately researched that it is hard to appreciate it as fiction, although most of the characters existed. The locations in the Trough of Bowland and Stonyhurst are descriptively drawn and the reader is further helped into the 17th century by the clever use of 'olde' English. One small criticism is that so many characters are hard to fix in your mind as you read, a list would help. The story follows the historical facts - Catholics have to worship in secret but after the death of Queen Elizabeth 1 the new king Scottish James is more inclined to class witchcraft as felony carrying the death penalty. The nobility built splendid houses and worried about the plague, the peasants and beggars had a life with little if any luxury. The main characters, Alice Nutter, the Southworth family, including Jane Shireburn to marry John Southworth, the riffraff of Pendle witches are drawn from history but brought to life in Middleton's style, and much of the action is very gruesome. To say more would be a plot spoiler, but it is not a pretty tale although the reader is left with a gentleness of place in Jane and Alice's Elizabethan world.
April 5, 2020
This is historical fiction at its very best, taking what is known and filling in the gaps in the record with plausible fiction. The story follows the life of Jane Southworth from her childhood to the Lancaster Assizes in 1612 where she was tried for witchcraft as one of the Samlesbury witches. It also touches on the Pendle witches who were tried at the same assizes. The author displays a thorough knowledge of the period and an understanding of the myriad factors, political and personal, which provoked witch trials in this period.
The prose is fluid and poetic, rich in detail and entirely lacking in any sense that the reader is being treated to a history lesson. The language used also manages to create a clear sense that this is a different time and place without sounding antiquated. Jane emerges as an engaging and thoroughly understandable character yet still a woman of her time.
The prose is fluid and poetic, rich in detail and entirely lacking in any sense that the reader is being treated to a history lesson. The language used also manages to create a clear sense that this is a different time and place without sounding antiquated. Jane emerges as an engaging and thoroughly understandable character yet still a woman of her time.
May 25, 2020
70% of the story is just about the MC, Jane, and her three John's. The last part of the book, an older Jane considers the events happening around her more (The Pendle Witch trials) and her involvement in those. I suppose you could consider herself a "witch" but it was nothing like what I thought it would be. She has this romance, John Armstrong, who she has a passionate affair with and in a letter, he corresponds he is making good money but after that, she never mentions him again. That is just one aspect of the book that is left unfinished. Upon research, I learnt that Jane actually did exist as did most of the characters but bits of their lives were just taken and haphazardly put together to make this novel. I did enjoy this somewhat but it is nothing like what it could have been.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 7, 2014
I'm afraid I gave up on this after five minutes. The characters weren't described and I had no idea where the story was taking place; who was in the room (I think it might have been a kitchen), and who's house we were in. The narrative jumped all over the place and I was so confused I started to get irritated with it.
I had to go back a page or two to find out who was actually speaking at one point. I wasn't prepared to persevere with it because by that time it had completely lost my interest and that was just the first couple of pages.
I had to go back a page or two to find out who was actually speaking at one point. I wasn't prepared to persevere with it because by that time it had completely lost my interest and that was just the first couple of pages.
April 10, 2023
This book is gorgeously written. Middleton is such a dreamy, immersive writer and invokes a time and a place perfectly.
I have had the privilege of going to the part of Lancashire Middleton writes about. It is only the other side of the mountain from where I live. I've been to Samlesbury Hall and St Leonard's church. I have marvelled at the quiet, green beauty of the Ribble Valley and the hulking broodiness of Pendle Hill. It is a quietening, atmospheric part of the world and it was wonderful to be back there.
Middleton also has a wonderful gift for voice and dialogue. It was perfect for the setting but not impenetrable or boggy. At times her prose was a little purple, but not enough to put me off my stride.
So why three stars? This read like two separate stories. The first three quarters of the book could have easily been a book on its own, and the themes it explores of the religious tensions of the time and the fear and superstition it fostered would easily have been solid enough. The last section about the witch trials felt a bit rushed and tacked on. Again, it could easily have been developed into a longer story on its own, but instead it felt rushed. Which is a real shame, because this really is a beautiful book.
I have had the privilege of going to the part of Lancashire Middleton writes about. It is only the other side of the mountain from where I live. I've been to Samlesbury Hall and St Leonard's church. I have marvelled at the quiet, green beauty of the Ribble Valley and the hulking broodiness of Pendle Hill. It is a quietening, atmospheric part of the world and it was wonderful to be back there.
Middleton also has a wonderful gift for voice and dialogue. It was perfect for the setting but not impenetrable or boggy. At times her prose was a little purple, but not enough to put me off my stride.
So why three stars? This read like two separate stories. The first three quarters of the book could have easily been a book on its own, and the themes it explores of the religious tensions of the time and the fear and superstition it fostered would easily have been solid enough. The last section about the witch trials felt a bit rushed and tacked on. Again, it could easily have been developed into a longer story on its own, but instead it felt rushed. Which is a real shame, because this really is a beautiful book.
April 19, 2025
Jane Southworth is married to John of Samlesbury Hall and was accused of witchcraft but the case collapsed. Jane is friends with Alice Nutter of the said witches in the Pendle witch trials.
I was so looking forward to reading this book. Part of my halloween reads with the theme of witches. The story also I thought would be to my liking with it been set in the times of the Pendle witch trials.
I struggled with this book. I'm two hundred pages in and I can't read anymore. The story is so boring and not a lot seems to be happening. With the story set against an interesting time in history and not a lot as happened.
Jane is telling her story and at times I'm quite lost as to what is going on. At one point I thought Jane was in a kitchen talking when actually she wad riding on a horse.
The story seemed to pick up a little once Jane was married which spured me on a bit further but then the book became boring again. I can clearly see that it looks like the Pendle witch part may be towards the end, and I've read other reviewers say it is the best bit but I just can't force myself to carry on.
I was so looking forward to reading this book. Part of my halloween reads with the theme of witches. The story also I thought would be to my liking with it been set in the times of the Pendle witch trials.
I struggled with this book. I'm two hundred pages in and I can't read anymore. The story is so boring and not a lot seems to be happening. With the story set against an interesting time in history and not a lot as happened.
Jane is telling her story and at times I'm quite lost as to what is going on. At one point I thought Jane was in a kitchen talking when actually she wad riding on a horse.
The story seemed to pick up a little once Jane was married which spured me on a bit further but then the book became boring again. I can clearly see that it looks like the Pendle witch part may be towards the end, and I've read other reviewers say it is the best bit but I just can't force myself to carry on.
September 11, 2025
This is a very good historical novel. This is not a witchy book, please don’t be under any illusions. I did not expect a magic or witchy story, as I’ve read enough books about the witch trials to know it won’t be about magic; but this is a very good example of a historical novel set around the time of the witch trials. It’s well written, not always easily understood, but I don’t often read olde English, so I didn’t mind not always knowing exactly what was being said. This is told from one woman’s perspective, and she is a witness to history. It is clearly a well researched novel and is better than many more publicised or ‘popular’ witch trial retellings.
June 4, 2018
Though I enjoyed this book it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. The plot had a similar feeling to the crucible in some way . The historical telling was interesting and I liked Jane well and thought there was a lot of misjudged behaviour towards her. For me there wasn’t enough of the witch trials and supposed behaviour that labelled them witch to make me give it a 5**** rating !
December 31, 2024
The last book of the year for me, and fitting that it should end on prophecy and forgiveness. I loved reading this fictionalisation of the Pendle Witch trials, finding myself back in a Lancashire so close to my heart.
August 17, 2022
An easy and interesting read that really grips you, you won't want to put it down I know I didn't!
September 6, 2023
Really enjoyable historical novel. Would definitely recommend.
November 18, 2023
An in-depth take on a well known matter, with a surprisingly deep perspective on how society perceives others. An intriguing read and gives a lot of food for thought.
June 17, 2021
A story based on the real characters of Jane Southworth and Alice Nutter. In the witch trials of 1612, Jane was one of the "Samlesbury witches" and Alice one of the "Pendle witches." Middleton provides a realistic portrait of a 17th c noblewoman, Jane, and the story is told from her point of view. Alice, here as in The poetic language sounds archaic and authentic but is very readable. I really felt like I was in the mind of this woman of a bygone age. The book documents this time of fear and uncertainty in England, after Catholicism was outlawed by Henry VIII. As well as witch panic, Catholic priests were going underground and being hidden by families often divided in their loyalties. The characters are portrayed in complexity, including Roger Nowell, also a real person and the magistrate.
August 20, 2014
An interesting take on the Pendle Witch Trials of the 17th c. It's clearly very well researched and the way the scenery and settings are described is beautiful!
October 4, 2016
Well written and well researched I enjoyed this book. Written in a style akin to the period, it was hard to start but after a while that was no problem.
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