Dance Tree

'Exceptionally brilliant. Immersive, sensual, compelling' - Marian Keyes'Intriguing, haunting . . . raw, beautiful' - Jennifer Saint, author of AriadneThe gripping, historical novel from Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mercies. Set in an era of superstition, hysteria, and extraordinary change, and inspired by the true events of a doomed summer, The Dance Tree is an impassioned story of family secrets, forbidden love, and women pushed to the edge.Strasbourg, 1518. In the midst of a blisteringly hot summer, a lone woman begins to dance in the city square. She dances for days without pause or rest, and as she is joined by hundreds of others, the authorities declare an emergency. Musicians will be brought in to play the Devil out of these women.Just beyond the city’s limits, pregnant Lisbet lives with her mother-in-law and husband, tending the bees that are their livelihood. And then, as the dancing plague gathers momentum, Lisbet’s sister-in-law Nethe returns from seven years’ penance in the mountains for a crime no one will name.It is a secret that Lisbet is determined to uncover. As the city buckles under the beat of a thousand feet, she finds herself thrust into a dangerous web of deceit and clandestine passion, but she is dancing to a dangerous tune . . .'Extraordinary . . . An exceptionally atmospheric, original story' - The Sunday Times'Spellbinding' - Elodie Harper, author of The Wolf Den

Extraordinary . . . enthralling . . . An exceptionally atmospheric, original story, The Dance Tree is unusual and beautifully written, and the questions it raises about faith and love linger. The vignettes of the lives of the dancing women are a joy, each a perfect little short story dropped into the main narrative, Exceptionally brilliant. Immersive, sensual, compelling and totally convincing. Accessible, ambitious, The Dance Tree deserves to win prizes, An intriguing, haunting novel pulsing with raw, beautiful emotion. Kiran Millwood-Hargrave effortlessly intertwines the stories of women tenderly and sympathetically, creating a novel in which female courage and resilience shines brightly against a brilliantly evoked backdrop of claustrophobic horror., Some historical novels don't just describe the past, they transport you there . . . I absolutely loved this book . . . an exceptionally beautiful portrait of women from the past, told in the most spellbinding prose

Kiran Millwood Hargrave (b.1990) is an award-winning poet, playwright, and novelist. The Mercies was her first novel for adults, and became an instant Sunday Times bestseller. It won a Betty Trask Award, was longlisted for the Jhalak Prize and was named amongst the NYT 100 Most Notable Books of 2020. Her bestselling works for children include The Girl of Ink & Stars and have won or been short and long-listed for numerous awards including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year, Costa Children’s Book Award, the Blue Peter Best Story Award and, twice, the CILIP Carnegie Medal. Kiran lives in Oxford with her husband, the artist Tom de Freston, and their rescue cats, Luna and Marly.