The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Set in 1518 Strasbourg, The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave revolves around the dancing plague that took over the city. The novel focuses on the protagonist, Lisbet, and her immediate family and friends, with the dancing plague and religious fervor as a compelling backdrop. Well researched and emotive, The Dance Tree is a wonderful piece of historical fiction. It is a must-read for anyone interested in this mysterious plague, and a page-turner for general historical fiction lovers.
Release Date: March 14, 2023
Available from Amazon & Bookshop.org
About the Author, Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Kiran Millwood Hargrave grew up in Surry and began to write in her final year at university. She currently resides in Oxford with her husband and rescue cat, Luna. Hargrave produced three poetry books and a play, prior to turning to children’s fiction. The Girl of Ink and Stars was her debut novel. This novel won the 2017 Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize and the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year. Since then, Hargrave has published nine books, ranging from YA to general historical fiction.
About The Dance Tree
The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is set amongst the mysterious 16th century dancing plague. This phenomenon overtook hundreds of Strasbourg women, as they danced without stopping in the town center during the hot summer of 1518. Hargrave manages to craft expansive, lifelike characters with this larger-than-life background, particularly with her protagonist, Lisbet.
Lisbet is pregnant, praying for a healthy child after a long series of unsuccessful pregnancies. Her relationship with her husband is tense. He is gone for most of the novel. This leaves her to tend their farmland and bees, a point of contention with the local authorities. Lisbet is surrounded mostly by her mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and a dear friend. The latter two don’t get along, which is a mystery Lisbet soon unravels. The familial drama unfolds all while the religious fervor and terror plays out in the city, where the Church authorities attempt to “play the Devil out of the mob” to limited success.
Plot Summary
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 when hundreds of other women join her, the men running the city declare a state of emergency and hire musicians to play the Devil out of the mob. Outside the city, pregnant Lisbet lives with her husband and mother-in-law, tending the bees that are the family’s livelihood. Though Lisbet is removed from the frenzy of the dancing plague afflicting the city’s women, her own quiet life is upended by the arrival of her sister-in-law. Nethe has been away for seven years, serving a penance in the mountains for a crime no one will name.
It is a secret Lisbet is determined to uncover. As the city buckles under the beat of a thousand feet, Lisbet becomes caught in a dangerous web of deceit and clandestine passion. Like the women of Strasbourg, she too, is dancing to a dangerous tune. . . .
Set in an era of superstition, hysteria, and extraordinary change, and inspired by true events, The Dance Tree is an impassioned story of family secrets, forbidden love, and women pushed to the edge.
My Thoughts on The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
In all, Hargrave’s The Dance Tree is a well-researched, thoughtful historical tale about real people during an unreal-sounding period of time. With robust characters, full of complex human emotion, the novel manages to illustrate the interaction of different cultures, beliefs, and worldviews compellingly. In fact, the stories told are largely timeless — human loss, fear, hopes, and so on that we feel as much today as in 1518.
Where to Buy The Dance Tree
Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s The Dance Tree was released on March 14, 2023. It is available from both Amazon and Bookshop.org.
If The Dance Tree sounds like something you’d enjoy, I think you’ll find
more great novels to read in my history lovers reading guide!
Explore my historical fiction reading guide here!
*This novel was gifted to me as part of a review program that Cats & Coffee is a part of. I was not required to post about the novel in exchange for getting a copy to read. All thoughts and opinions are my honest own.
