THE BRIDLED TONGUE by Catherine Meyrick

A tale of family intrigue set in Elizabethan England that builds to a dramatic crescendo. Alyce returns home after a twelve-year absence when her family sent her away as a lady-in-waiting in training due to her close relationship with her grandmother, who was a suspected witch. But life seems to break in Alyce’s direction when privateer and landowner Thomas asks her father for her hand in marriage. But reminders of his bachelor days and his swashbuckling extended absences to sail against the Spanish Armada fuel Alyce’s doubts about Thomas and their marriage. Furthermore, jealousies, misperceptions and suspicions about Alyce’s past fester in her family, putting her new life as the Lady of Ashthorpe in jeopardy. Scenes and settings are developed with well-researched period detail and a sprinkling of period usages that provide a keen sense of late 16th century England. In particular, childbirth is portrayed with both the exultation of hopes for an heir and also the parents’ and entire family’s stark fears of the serious risks to the mother and infant given the limitations of period medicine. Tension builds to a climactic inquisition, and a historical note provides terrific context on the prosecution of witchcraft during the Elizabethan period. Ms. Meyrick has penned another historical novel set in Elizabethan England and a third set in 19th century Western Australia.