The Mercies | Kiran Millwood Hargrave

The storm comes in like a finger snap . . .

Winter, 1617. The sea around the remote Norwegian island of Vardo is thrown into a vicious storm. A young woman, Maren, watches as the men of the island, out fishing, perish in an instant.

Vardo is now a place of women. Eighteen months later, a sinister figure arrives. Absalom Cornet has been summoned to bring the women of the island to heel.

With him travels his young wife, Ursa. In her new home, and in Maren, Ursa encounters something she has never seen before: independent women. But where Ursa finds happiness, even love, Absalom sees only a place flooded with a terrible evil, one he must root out at all costs .