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"They say witch, but what do they mean? Witch is a reason to kill you; witch might be someone to heal you; witch can be the Devil, or witch can be a woman so beautiful she makes you lose your sense. They've got so many ways of calling you a witch, they just change it to how it suits them."

I went into Hester, a tale of historical fiction which imagines the life of the woman who inspired the main character of The Scarlet Letter, with a bit of an unusual perspective - in that I have never read the source material. I know little of The Scarlet Letter, not even the basic plot, and requested an ALC of Hester on the basis of its blurb alone.

And I wasn't disappointed!

Our main character, Isobel, is instantly likeable and very well developed, with a clear voice. She has passions, fears, hopes, and dreams, and a unique talent, too: she sees the colours of words, including the infamous scarlet letter A. Isobel, like many women in her family before her, has synesthesia. And her mother, upon learning this fact, cautions her never to share it for fear of Isobel being accused of being a witch - just like her grandmother.

Isobel eventually travels from her homeland of Scotland across the ocean to the United States, landing in Salem with her husband, ready to start a new life. But America isn't all she had dreamed of, and she is left to fend for herself in a hostile land.

A tale of resilience, inner strength, found family, and feminism, and beautifully narrated with spot-on accents by Saskia Maarleveld, Hester swept me up and away on winds of red and gold.

A truly stunning and vivid story that kept my interest from beginning to end.

"And if I told it to my daughter, then she would know my secrets. And if I told it truthfully, she would know my pain. And if I told it right, she would learn everything that I know about love, and desire, and the colours. About this world and the hidden world. About the man with the red and gold voice, who was almost the ruin of me. And she would know how I survived."


Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audiobooks for providing me with an ALC for review.


Trigger/Content Warnings: sexism/misogyny, violence, blood, torture, murder, slavery, human trafficking, addiction/drug abuse, infidelity


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