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This is the second book by Rosie Garland that I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed both. They would be best described as dark fairy tales.

Vixen is set in South West England in the time of the plague. Frightened people are looking for miracles and their priest, Thomas, is determined to provide them. It looks with an unflinching and critical gaze at the corruption of Catholicism and the rampant misogyny that accompanies the religious doctrine.

When a child is found close to death the priest declares she is sent by God to save them. In his vanity he believes he owns this miracle and his housekeeper Anne and it his right to use and ill-use them as he wishes. The child, known as Vixen and The Maid, is more pagan than Christian and more woman than child, but both escape the priest’s notice.

It is a wonderful tale, full of heartache, death, violence and tenderness. Rosie Garland’s prose is poetic and evocative.